Bibliophilia With A Side of Moxie
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My books are 'taking over the apartment,' she says, and something must be done.
I agree. I should buy more books.
Growing up, my parents would hem and haw every time my brothers and I cried out for some shiny plaything, but they would cede to our every request for books. We were not allowed toys in the car, but novels and biographies got the green light. These were wise moves, although it turns out you can still beat your sibling senseless with a good hardcover - we were still boys.
Kurt Vonnegut once said that he thinks books are the greatest practical joke in the world, because it's amazing what you can do to a person with a piece of paper. I personally believe that every $1 paperback could turn out to be the best investment you've ever made. My grandmother considers each book she has read to have become part of her very soul.
The end result is a family tradition of bookshelves that bow under the weight of words. My brother and sister-in-law have four floor-to-ceiling bookcases each in a two-bedroom apartment, and clearing out my grandmother's house resulted in fifty boxes of tomes ranging from geology to cryptography to Native American mythology. My girlfriend at the time - who is brilliant, although not a big reader - claims that she has been attacked by the piles of books leaning over my bed. She thinks they may be out to get her, and to knock her off through a literal Death by Thousand Paper Cuts.
So offering to buy more books does not fly. Soon, my fledgling collection is being stuffed into the biggest backpack I own. I move so often that there are multiple cities in this country where whole boxes of books sit in storage, or behind couches, awaiting my eventual return. But I'm not leaving this city just yet, so I need to find a suitable place for my collection in the meantime.
It occurs to me that I have always wanted to start a library.
I think that librarians are custodians of civilization, and that library membership trends serve as a weathervane for national mental health. Countries trying to destroy their enemies always go after their books, because those stacks of bindings and dogears are more powerful than bullets.
A week later, every book I own has occupied every spare table in the break room at work. A check-out list springs up on the wall, with one caveat: Just don't steal my f%&^ing books.
I really can't take responsibility for what happens next.
Productivity plummets. I spot co-workers walking from place to place, their nose firmly in a treatise on island biogeography, and all but ignoring customers. Breaktime swells, overflowing their workaday banks as people race to finish this one last chapter. Little caches of books start to spring up anywhere that there's room, like an alcoholic storing spare Coors in the toilet tank.
I am thrilled. I check the sign-out sheet every day, even on days that I'm not working, nurturing my pet project like a like a green thumb in a garden. Other books appear in the library that aren't even mine. I include a column on the check-out sheet labeled, 'How Awesome Was It?', and people rant and rave or tape up tiny book reviews written on scraps of notebook paper.
Conversation begins to percolate about the theology of Islam and Mormonism. My bosses dive into the history of influenza and biographies of Sinatra. The receptionist reads about the genetics of fruit flies, and it inspires her to do art projects. A nineteen-year old Cambodian-American starts reading about Asian-American history for the first time, and tells me that my library is literally changing his life. Every book about sex disappears in a heartbeat.
The library keeps on growing, because I'm buying handfuls of half-price books faster than people are checking them out: I have always bought more books than I could handle, but now I have an army of bookworms to handle the overflow. One of the janitors scores a free bookcase in an alleyway, and soon this library starts to look almost official - damn near professional - which makes me wonder how on earth I could have ever had anything to do with it.
When all is said and done, and it's time for us all to close up shop and move on, at least three dozen books have permanently flown the coop. I am happy with this. Because I believe these books will make it on their own, and maybe find a kind person's head that they can call home.
My books are 'taking over the apartment,' she says, and something must be done.
I agree. I should buy more books.
Growing up, my parents would hem and haw every time my brothers and I cried out for some shiny plaything, but they would cede to our every request for books. We were not allowed toys in the car, but novels and biographies got the green light. These were wise moves, although it turns out you can still beat your sibling senseless with a good hardcover - we were still boys.
Kurt Vonnegut once said that he thinks books are the greatest practical joke in the world, because it's amazing what you can do to a person with a piece of paper. I personally believe that every $1 paperback could turn out to be the best investment you've ever made. My grandmother considers each book she has read to have become part of her very soul.
The end result is a family tradition of bookshelves that bow under the weight of words. My brother and sister-in-law have four floor-to-ceiling bookcases each in a two-bedroom apartment, and clearing out my grandmother's house resulted in fifty boxes of tomes ranging from geology to cryptography to Native American mythology. My girlfriend at the time - who is brilliant, although not a big reader - claims that she has been attacked by the piles of books leaning over my bed. She thinks they may be out to get her, and to knock her off through a literal Death by Thousand Paper Cuts.
So offering to buy more books does not fly. Soon, my fledgling collection is being stuffed into the biggest backpack I own. I move so often that there are multiple cities in this country where whole boxes of books sit in storage, or behind couches, awaiting my eventual return. But I'm not leaving this city just yet, so I need to find a suitable place for my collection in the meantime.
It occurs to me that I have always wanted to start a library.
I think that librarians are custodians of civilization, and that library membership trends serve as a weathervane for national mental health. Countries trying to destroy their enemies always go after their books, because those stacks of bindings and dogears are more powerful than bullets.
A week later, every book I own has occupied every spare table in the break room at work. A check-out list springs up on the wall, with one caveat: Just don't steal my f%&^ing books.
I really can't take responsibility for what happens next.
Productivity plummets. I spot co-workers walking from place to place, their nose firmly in a treatise on island biogeography, and all but ignoring customers. Breaktime swells, overflowing their workaday banks as people race to finish this one last chapter. Little caches of books start to spring up anywhere that there's room, like an alcoholic storing spare Coors in the toilet tank.
I am thrilled. I check the sign-out sheet every day, even on days that I'm not working, nurturing my pet project like a like a green thumb in a garden. Other books appear in the library that aren't even mine. I include a column on the check-out sheet labeled, 'How Awesome Was It?', and people rant and rave or tape up tiny book reviews written on scraps of notebook paper.
Conversation begins to percolate about the theology of Islam and Mormonism. My bosses dive into the history of influenza and biographies of Sinatra. The receptionist reads about the genetics of fruit flies, and it inspires her to do art projects. A nineteen-year old Cambodian-American starts reading about Asian-American history for the first time, and tells me that my library is literally changing his life. Every book about sex disappears in a heartbeat.
The library keeps on growing, because I'm buying handfuls of half-price books faster than people are checking them out: I have always bought more books than I could handle, but now I have an army of bookworms to handle the overflow. One of the janitors scores a free bookcase in an alleyway, and soon this library starts to look almost official - damn near professional - which makes me wonder how on earth I could have ever had anything to do with it.
When all is said and done, and it's time for us all to close up shop and move on, at least three dozen books have permanently flown the coop. I am happy with this. Because I believe these books will make it on their own, and maybe find a kind person's head that they can call home.