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Sat 21 Aug, 2004 01:32 pm
Gentle Readers--
Paperbacks proliferate. Books burgeon. Beginning with The Bible, The Word is fruitful and The Words increase and multiply, volume by volume.
Since I broke my hip last April, thanks to the kitchen tongs and kindly bystanders, I've been able to read all authors, regardless of their alphabetical ranking. Unfortunately for my tidy mind, I haven't been able to shelve books by authors with names beginning with "A", "B", "C" and most of "D".
This morning I dragged out the step ladder and accomplished four months of back shelving, double-shelving, racking and stacking. My leg aches, but you should be able to see A Glow of Monumental Accomplishment shining through the thunderclouds along the Eastern Seaboard.
If heaven were a material sort of place, I'd expect to find row after row of infinitely receptive shelving. Living in this imperfect world, ever so often books must be winnowed.
What do you do with once-read paperbacks? Are you more likely to keep a hardback than a paperback? Finally, how often do you dust your literary treasures?
Dust 'em about every month or so. I'm not fond of dusting.
I have been having problems with shelf space recently, a significant lack thereof. I know that I need to pull my father's old book case out of the garage but it's way at the back and needs a good cleaning besides. I've been putting it off all winter as a spring/summer job. But the books are piling high and my Dickens is getting crushed (if I were a guy that would be a lot funnier). Ah, well, shall have to buckle under and get the thing done.
If you can get the shelving done, Noddy, with your bad hip and all, who am I to refuse the challenge?
I rent a storage space for $32 a month. It's filled with books, records, couches and knick-knacks. Hmmm...I've spent $1000 so far to keep this stuff.
In my opinion, books are worth it.
My parents always had thousands of books on display. They said that throwing away a book was criminal. I'm an acorn that fell not too far from the tree.
fortune--
Dust once a month? I'm impressed. I aim to dust the high shelves twice a year, but don't get to feeling sordid until the dust settles for 18 months.
panzade--
Once upon a time when I was a sweet and innocent child, I lived on Snob Hill near Johnstown, PA. One neighbor was overheard to remark on my mother's flaws:
"Now you have books, S---, and I have books and where are these books? Up in the attic in boxes where they belong."
We're materialists, but high-class, high-brow materialists.
Noddy, LOL we were neighbors. We had a farm near Bedford. It was called Chestnut Ridge and I believe we were 10 minutes from J'stown the back way.
Panzade--
Bedford was a bit further than 10 minutes....a good 40 minutes over the mountain roads. Remember the Horseshoe Curve?
Noddy, my version of dusting books is just to flip a dry rag in the general direction of the dust until it no longer rises up in choking clouds. I make it a point never to have a book shelf taller than me (I'm 6'2'') so the dust on top simply offends me too much to let it pile as deep as I otherwise would.
fortune--
I'm 5'2" and what the eye doesn't see, the heart doesn't grieve for.
There were holidays when my mother adjusted her dusting to the height of the company coming--and I'm my mother's daughter.
I bought one of those Swiffer dusters so now my books get dusted when everything else gets dusted - every couple of weeks.
Paperbacks not worthy of rereads go to work with me, where they are placed in the break room and quickly disappear. My crew consists of a lot of readers and we believe in sharing.
Mostly, I hang on to my books, though.
Should I find myself anywhere near PA, I will happily shelve and fetch for you, Noddy.
I want you to be careful on that ladder.
One of my dreams is to turn a spare bedroom in our house into a proper library. I've been accumulating "how-to" magazines for a few years now with plans and parts lists for built-in bookcases along the walls. Maybe, just maybe we'll get started when we're back home in December.
(this is an awful thing for an engineer to admit, but I'm not a very mechanically minded person. I want and need the bookcases badly, but I'm a little anxious about actually doing it)
I think bookshelves fit in every room, even the laundry, whatever. I have lived in tiny places and larger. All rooms can do with books. Unless one can make one or two a library and have others clear, for an aesthetic reason.
When I look at architectual digest, which is fairly often as part of playtime at work, I cannot believe how few of those folks seem to read anything or save any pictorial info or have a computer or file drawers or video rooms or...
We have a client in LA. I think he has or had 40,000 videos, and if I am off it isn't by far. Gotta build for that kind of storage. Presumably now he has moved to dvd.
I don't like seeing houses with no mental processes going on in the space, creeps me out.
Not to throw you with our once in a while clients. I still am scratching for bookshelf building money myself.
Noddy, we were outside of Shellsburg, North side. Quite a bit closer than 40 minutes from you.
I make no distinction between paperbacks and hardbacks - if I like it and consider it worthy, it stays - as do classics and reference books.
I cull regularly - try to get a bit of money for some of them - donate a lot more.
I am overwhelmed by books though - and I am thinking of a really hard cull. Sigh.
I dust them when I think of it, or I move them.
Here's a place for old books:
http://www.able2know.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=20369
We donate a lot of ours to the library where my Mom is retired from - they can always use stuff or they weed it out and sell it for a little cash. Or, we give them to Goodwill.
We also keep a lot of books and there are shelves on three separate floors of the house. The only reason there are none in the basement is 'cause it gets damp there.
Dusting? People actually dust when company isn't about to pull into the driveway?
BTW, welcome back Deb. You was missed.
Boomerang--
Thanks. In view of the distances involved, I'll take the thought for the deed.
Jim--
Take courage. The wisdom of the ages will be on your side.
Ossobuco--
We share decorating tastes. Bookshelves do furnish a room as well as a mind.
Panzade--
I'm not terribly clever about Western PA distances since I left Ferndale at 15, before driving age.
Dlowan--
Glad to see you back. Your vacation made
The New Yorker.
http://www.cartoonbank.com/product_details.asp?mscssid=JEBR6GTE86A18HBBAWXQCU1KL1DM42KE&sitetype=1&sid=119044&did=4
Jespah--
When the guests are in the driveway, there's no time for anything except kicking major debris out of the way.
panzade wrote:BTW, welcome back Deb. You was missed.
Awwww - schniffff.........
Noddy - thankee - but the link led to a "product could not be located".....?
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