In which I am stronger than you think
Aug. 16th, 2006 02:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
desperanceI was in town this morning, shopping for this and that, and being conspicuously undercharged all the way, from the coffee beans to the pancetta. This is good. Then I arrived at the Oxfam bookshop, and discovered why the fates were slipping me these extra pennies. There was a Chalet School book that I don't have in hardback. A reprint, with a very tatty dustcover, but neither of those troubles me. It was eighty quid, though, and that troubles me a great deal.
Nevertheless, you are sitting there thinking that I bought it anyway. Aren't you? He's just finished a book, you're thinking, and he's got all the willpower and resolve of overcooked asparagus when it comes to things he wants...
Well, you're wrong. I left it on the shelf, and I'm not going back for it. It's just too much. I did once spend fifty quid on a Chalet School book, in the same shop yet; but that was the day my dad died, and I didn't much care about the money. And the book was a first edition, and still little more than half the price of this one; and more than all of that, I thought he'd have appreciated the gesture. He was always much amused by the pleasure that I took from these 'dreadful' books (his word), especially as they did act as a link between his childhood and mine: the first of them was published in 1926, when he would have been six, and the last in 1970, when I was eleven.
There's a difference, though, between being amused and taking the piss. I am not going back for that book.
Nevertheless, you are sitting there thinking that I bought it anyway. Aren't you? He's just finished a book, you're thinking, and he's got all the willpower and resolve of overcooked asparagus when it comes to things he wants...
Well, you're wrong. I left it on the shelf, and I'm not going back for it. It's just too much. I did once spend fifty quid on a Chalet School book, in the same shop yet; but that was the day my dad died, and I didn't much care about the money. And the book was a first edition, and still little more than half the price of this one; and more than all of that, I thought he'd have appreciated the gesture. He was always much amused by the pleasure that I took from these 'dreadful' books (his word), especially as they did act as a link between his childhood and mine: the first of them was published in 1926, when he would have been six, and the last in 1970, when I was eleven.
There's a difference, though, between being amused and taking the piss. I am not going back for that book.
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(no subject)
Date: 2006-08-16 01:38 pm (UTC)And do I infer that this is, in fact, a book of which you already have a copy, only not in hardback? It's the words that matter, you know (I am, myself, currently reading a book in a most inelegant print-it-yourself format, and loving every minute of it...).
(no subject)
Date: 2006-08-16 04:54 pm (UTC)I know, I do know. I'm just reaching that point where about half my collection is in hardback, and so the balance tilts towards thoughts of completism; and they're nicer to hold, much nicer to read in that form, and they look better on the shelf, and...
But I'm not going back.