One book at a time
Oct. 8th, 2011 03:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
desperanceHeh. I may be making it harder than it ought to be, but this is not going to be easy.
So far today, I have put three books into the discard box. Three! It's taken ... rather longer than it ought. As my mother observed to my affianced, I do find decisions difficult.
The first was a selected edition of Kipling's verse, edited by T S Eliot. I've probably owned it for thirty years, and never opened it. I have a complete Kipling, which was a gift from my mother and I shall certainly be holding on to that; so I don't need this. But! Essay by T S Eliot! I had to stop and check that it was available online, before the book could go in the box.
Then there was a collection of essays by G K Chesterton. Which again, owned for ever, never read. If I haven't read it in the last thirty years, what are the odds that I shall read it in the next thirty? Diminishing. That one's actually harder to let go of, just because; one of the reasons to own books is because one has not read them. Like you keep your larder stocked with dry food, in case of need. If I ever need essays by Chesterton, though, I'm sure that I can find them t'other side of the pond.
And then there's a novel, "And No Birds Sing", by SMC. I know nothing about this; I have no idea how it came into my possession. It's a historical, set in Crusader times (aha! That'll be why I picked it up, then. But I still don't know where, and I certainly never read it). It, um, doesn't look very good. But who is this SMC? Wikipedia knows nothing about her... Aha! Deeper in the internet, I learn that she is Sister Mary Catherine of the Dominican Convent of Saint Catherine of Siena, Torquay; and that she is responsible for sixty-odd books, mostly of a religious nature. Further peeking suggests that this novel is also of a religious nature. And still not very good, but I do still have that peckish curiosity; I would quite like to have read this. I just don't think I want to read it. Other, better books are waiting. Into the box with it, then...
But, yup. That took a while. And a while longer, to post about. And I have five thousand books, or thereabouts.
And - in other but related news - when I'm stressed, I fall back on comfort reading. Last night I scoured my disordered shelves; apparently I am settling down for a thorough wallow in Modesty Blaise. Stressed much? I wonder why?
So far today, I have put three books into the discard box. Three! It's taken ... rather longer than it ought. As my mother observed to my affianced, I do find decisions difficult.
The first was a selected edition of Kipling's verse, edited by T S Eliot. I've probably owned it for thirty years, and never opened it. I have a complete Kipling, which was a gift from my mother and I shall certainly be holding on to that; so I don't need this. But! Essay by T S Eliot! I had to stop and check that it was available online, before the book could go in the box.
Then there was a collection of essays by G K Chesterton. Which again, owned for ever, never read. If I haven't read it in the last thirty years, what are the odds that I shall read it in the next thirty? Diminishing. That one's actually harder to let go of, just because; one of the reasons to own books is because one has not read them. Like you keep your larder stocked with dry food, in case of need. If I ever need essays by Chesterton, though, I'm sure that I can find them t'other side of the pond.
And then there's a novel, "And No Birds Sing", by SMC. I know nothing about this; I have no idea how it came into my possession. It's a historical, set in Crusader times (aha! That'll be why I picked it up, then. But I still don't know where, and I certainly never read it). It, um, doesn't look very good. But who is this SMC? Wikipedia knows nothing about her... Aha! Deeper in the internet, I learn that she is Sister Mary Catherine of the Dominican Convent of Saint Catherine of Siena, Torquay; and that she is responsible for sixty-odd books, mostly of a religious nature. Further peeking suggests that this novel is also of a religious nature. And still not very good, but I do still have that peckish curiosity; I would quite like to have read this. I just don't think I want to read it. Other, better books are waiting. Into the box with it, then...
But, yup. That took a while. And a while longer, to post about. And I have five thousand books, or thereabouts.
And - in other but related news - when I'm stressed, I fall back on comfort reading. Last night I scoured my disordered shelves; apparently I am settling down for a thorough wallow in Modesty Blaise. Stressed much? I wonder why?