Library
I have a Library at home.
Um.
This is possibly the biggest over-statement in history, to say nothing of it also being pretentious cock. I'll try again.
I have Porch at home, which has books in it.
That's better.
My porch is quite an elongated affair, and contains, by my count, 21 shelves each containing double and sometimes triple layers of books. Most of the bookshelves are Mr Ikea's finest 'Billy' range, some with as many as six shelves, all tastefully constructed in a white melamine finish, but this is not the point of the discourse. The books contained within same, ah yes, these, then.
I have read very nearly all of them at some point or another. I am afraid to say that very few of them are Literature. One shelf's worth, in fact, is all; I haven't read all of that shelf. The rest: paperback thrillers, science fiction, crime novels, fantasy. Some rock climbing guides and quite a few mountaineering prose texts. Various comedy novels - Tom Sharpe, Stephen Fry. Harry Potter. The Lord of the Rings. A large assortment of further miscellany.
The LOML tidied up the Library the other day. She bought new bookshelves, constructed them (she's a demon with a disposable allen key, the LOML), placed them in the Library, filled them neatly with the disordered piles of books therein. All is now ordered (look, all-stuff-is-now-on-shelves ordered, not Dewey-Decimal ordered. We're not that anal). I think it looks marvellous; civilised, erudite, dignified (as long as you don't look at the titles too closely: difficult to use these three adjectives in close conjunction to the complete works of Patricia Cornwell. Or Dick Francis. But still).
She wants to get rid of it.
She thinks that we should sell most of the books. I've read them, after all, she says. It's a waste of space. I try to explain that would be like selling a CD after listening to it once. She counters, not without skill, that I won't read many of them ever again. Aha, I say, maybe not, maybe not. But Child One will, if he carries on the way he is going. A veritable bookworm, that boy, I say.
This is my Most Convincing Argument, and I really hope she has no counter to it, because I have nowhere further to go, debate wise. I'll be reduced to petulance, tears, and I don't care what you say they're my books and I like them and you aren't allowed to sell them so there.
Fortunately, all I get is a you can keep it fucking tidy in there yourself in future then, and my cause, for the moment at least, is won.
My books are safe.
Um.
This is possibly the biggest over-statement in history, to say nothing of it also being pretentious cock. I'll try again.
I have Porch at home, which has books in it.
That's better.
My porch is quite an elongated affair, and contains, by my count, 21 shelves each containing double and sometimes triple layers of books. Most of the bookshelves are Mr Ikea's finest 'Billy' range, some with as many as six shelves, all tastefully constructed in a white melamine finish, but this is not the point of the discourse. The books contained within same, ah yes, these, then.
I have read very nearly all of them at some point or another. I am afraid to say that very few of them are Literature. One shelf's worth, in fact, is all; I haven't read all of that shelf. The rest: paperback thrillers, science fiction, crime novels, fantasy. Some rock climbing guides and quite a few mountaineering prose texts. Various comedy novels - Tom Sharpe, Stephen Fry. Harry Potter. The Lord of the Rings. A large assortment of further miscellany.
The LOML tidied up the Library the other day. She bought new bookshelves, constructed them (she's a demon with a disposable allen key, the LOML), placed them in the Library, filled them neatly with the disordered piles of books therein. All is now ordered (look, all-stuff-is-now-on-shelves ordered, not Dewey-Decimal ordered. We're not that anal). I think it looks marvellous; civilised, erudite, dignified (as long as you don't look at the titles too closely: difficult to use these three adjectives in close conjunction to the complete works of Patricia Cornwell. Or Dick Francis. But still).
She wants to get rid of it.
She thinks that we should sell most of the books. I've read them, after all, she says. It's a waste of space. I try to explain that would be like selling a CD after listening to it once. She counters, not without skill, that I won't read many of them ever again. Aha, I say, maybe not, maybe not. But Child One will, if he carries on the way he is going. A veritable bookworm, that boy, I say.
This is my Most Convincing Argument, and I really hope she has no counter to it, because I have nowhere further to go, debate wise. I'll be reduced to petulance, tears, and I don't care what you say they're my books and I like them and you aren't allowed to sell them so there.
Fortunately, all I get is a you can keep it fucking tidy in there yourself in future then, and my cause, for the moment at least, is won.
My books are safe.
posted by crisiswhatcrisis at
10:20 am
5 Comments:
Mrs Soldier once reorganised my books. Not by theme or author or any such criteria.
Oh no - they all had to be the same height otherwise they weren't allowed on the same shelf.
By
DC, at 12:57 pm
dci: she wants to make room for other stuff on the shelves. Make-up, or shoes, possibly.
I haven't, but thank you for the recommendation.
Rest assured that Mr Pratchett's entire oeuvre is present, and read. Not, perhaps unkindly, on the Literature shelf however.
US: I organise mine strictly by colour.
By
crisiswhatcrisis, at 2:51 pm
I moved recently and found all my Dick Francis. I read one. The I then read all the others again. One day you will be in the same mood. It is vital to keep all books, always. Especially if you have read them.
You would not get rid of a photograph when you had looked at it once. Or kick out an old friend after one evening...
Sadly I have all my CDs arranged alphabetically.
By
the Beep, at 3:00 pm
I have printed out your comment and will stick it smugly in the LOML's face at an appropriate opportunity.
By
crisiswhatcrisis, at 4:05 pm
Um. It was a, ah, figure of speech. Mysogynistic too, no doubt. One can take these things too litera(ri)ly.
By
crisiswhatcrisis, at 5:07 pm
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