For the love of the word!
The paperless society has a long way to go. At least in my opinion. Perhaps I am biased by my age, or perhaps my eyes aren’t well-tuned to reading on a monitor screen. It just might be that grabbing a book off the shelf is so quick and easy, and since those books I have read are nicely tabbed at what I think are key sections or phrases, I can get to what I want very fast indeed. This goes for magazines too.
As a result of this high preference for the published word (a preference that for once my wife shares fully!), the house is rapidly becoming a mini-library, with shelves filled by our favorite authors and subjects. At last estimate, there are 7,000 books and about 18 boxes of magazines spread over five rooms of the house. My wife notices the cracks in the plaster every day, and wonders whether the house is going to fall down. Settlement cracks I said to her. Which was true enough, but this 100-year-old house has had its time for that. These are newly formed cracks and I am certain that they are due to the overload of books on the structure, especially in our two upstairs studies.
Some weeks ago, with sadness and pain I packed up eight boxes of my old textbooks and references and hauled them to the public library. These old friends may still see good use there. At least I hope so. They served me well for many years.
But when I collected up the new books I had bought and read from stacks all around my study, and put them into the empty spots on my bookcases, I was no better off than before. The bookcases were full again. And still the new books come in via UPS and frequent trips to the local bookstores.
Blogging has initiated another world of reference book purchases for such initials as HTML, CSS, XML, DHTML, CGS, JSCRIPT, and several others, most of which I haven’t read, much less mastered. This blogsite shows that very clearly I am sure! (The important thing is I am slowly getting what I want for the site!)
Another recent driver for more books has been the political scene, and the incredible battle between Left and Right for the votes of the electorate. Obviously, one of my motives for starting to blog came from my personal need to put my opinions out for all to see. Not that they are particularly profound opinions, but I hope they add to the battle at least one more vote for the Right.
Meanwhile, the wife has also been acquiring books at a frantic pace. She likes novels by women authors, and has read and kept most of the novel production of the last five or ten years, I don't know how long, really. Her other passion is psychology and sociology, and her library on those subjects grows weekly. And then there is her ten or twelve year collection of Gourmets, and six bookcases full of cookbooks…
There are two thoughts that haunt me now: 1) which of the many books I (we?) own must I try to give up to make room for more; and 2) if the present rate of book and magazine acquisition continues without giving up any books to the library again, or dumping the magazines, how long will it be before the house falls down just as the wife has predicted for months?
# posted by Mannning @ 11:39 PM
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