singapore is slowly eating my books
I made a startling and tragic discovery last week. As I was moving a few books from my old office (what will soon be the baby's room) to a bookcase in the living room, I saw that several of my books were spotted on the edges with what looked like book mold, as aptly demonstrated above by my hardcover copy of Hal Duncan's brilliant novel Vellum. It's certainly not all of my books, and seems to be limited to those using cheaper-quality paper, but it's enough to be a concern.
This past week, I began reading Ian McDonald's Brasyl in paperback, which was also affected, but even after taking an allergy pill before each reading session, I got an itchy nose and watery eyes and had to put the book down. (I also had to put it down after 125 pages because all of the literary eyeball kicks were leaving me sore and exhausted.)
As a book lover, this makes me despondent. I spent considerable effort and expense to ship my books (the ones left over after the Second Chance Book Adoption sale in 2006 and 2007) from the US to Singapore, yet now that they're here, they've been soiled in such an unexpected way. Although with the tropical climate here, it's not so unexpected. Still, for someone who is loath to even write notes in a margin or dog-ear the pages, it's extremely disappointing. These were the books that I decided to keep, the ones that were rare enough, or that had meaning for me, or that I wanted to be able to read or refer to again, and they're being slowly eaten away by Singapore's humidity.
As a Buddhist, I should take this as a lesson in impermanence, as a demonstration of the way that certain things will not be around forever. Even such a solid-seeming and lasting object as a book will suffer from forces beyond my control. I could try to build a climate-controlled library that would keep the books in pristine condition, but I still would not be able to take them with me into the next life. Yet at the same time, I'm still fairly young, and hopefully have much of my life still ahead of me, and wish that I could enjoy these books for a long time to come. Sadly, for some of these titles, this will not be the case.