10
Mar
I vaguely remember the conversation that prompted it. My father discovered I liked reading classic novels, and even preferred them to the Sweet Valley High books I’d torn through until I could not stand any further comparison between Jessica and her “chocolate brown walls” or Elizabeth’s ponytail and lip gloss.
He began bringing books home for me. Discards from the library at the high school where he taught. Books from flea markets. Stacks of them, from everywhere. I thought he was getting them free and only later found out that no, he paid for rather a lot of them. In fact my most cherished book – a complete collection of the poetry of Carl Sandburg – was gift from him. It seemed like as soon as I read them, he brought four more. A good chunk of my book collection in high school I didn’t read until my 20s. Some I still haven’t read. Once Dad began accumulating for me, he never stopped. Once, when I got into college and mentioned casually I was struggling with writer’s block on an assignment, he greeted me on our next holiday visit with three books designed to overcome writer’s block. I still haven’t read them, in truth. I could never ever talk to my father about boyfriend troubles or the conditions of his household that drove me away, but when it came to writing and keeping working he paid attention with acute detail. He was simply thrilled to finally have something in common with me.
I’m not sure when I began doing it to myself. Hoarding books from library stacks, surfing book sales, even overcharging my credit card for five books at a time at Barnes and Noble. But the evidence was there, my home overstuffed with bookshelves. When I went to meet with a professor in his home, he had to move bookshelves to let us in – his extended out onto his three season porch. I realized that there was no way the man could be regularly accessing and using all those books. My ex had the same reaction that I did to his proposals we buy a wooden Indian for our living room. “No…just…NO.”
The books may have been a point of pride, but after my divorce I recognized their burden. They were the heaviest moving boxes, the ones that took the longest to pack, the ones I paused over, cringed over, cried over. Forget the Waterford crystal and other heirloomish things foisted upon me unwilling. My heart was in the books.
Recent years of fighting to swim upstream in the world with the weight of my belongings tugging at my neck have caused me to rethink who I am, and rethink the place of books in my self-concept. I still have books, quite a lot. But I need them less and less. I’m actually quietly phasing out any book I would not reread, and that’s rather a lot of them. Some I’ve even torn up and used in decoupage, marking up boxes I intend to use for shipping so they’re at least nominally “packaged” in the way many of my perfume clients like to demand. 1 I’ve also noticed more people televised and in real life who are burdened, even restricted, by their stuff. Books weigh heavy among them.
I can be smart and geeky and maybe even someday only own one bookshelf. Besides, I have an awesome computer and the Nook doesn’t look so bad.
- Just because I client “demands” doesn’t mean I do. In fact demanding something is one way to get me to dump a transaction. Your happiness is important to me, and my happiness is way more important to me. [↩]
I am regrettably out of the loop these days about what’s coming out on the neopagan/occult book market. I’m also aware of the irony of this, since I still write book reviews and at one point I was on the mailing list for all the major occult publishers and a few of the minor ones, too. There are a lot of reasons for this, the main one being the two book cases and stack on the floor of books I have yet to read, some which have been waiting for me for quite literally a decade. Still, once in awhile a book, fiction or non, makes it through my filters. The Witch of Portobello is definitely one of those books.
It is the life story of a woman who chooses unconventional methods to live the truest relationship to God she can conceive. Told from the point of view of a reporter who is in love with her, her origins and how she becomes who she is is a tale to inspire the most determined nonconformist in all of us.
Dear Umbra,
I have noticed that digital book readers have started to enter the market and wonder if they are more ecologically sound than conventional books. I am interested in buying one but suspect that they are full of metals that damage the environment in their production. Also, they would use up energy when in use, but I have heard that this is minimal. On the other hand, paper books take a lot of production and transport to reach the reader. Which would be the more eco option?Jonathan A.Glasgow, Scotlandanswer Dearest Jonathan,It hurts to say it, but e-books are looking like a good option, even perhaps the better option. Ouch. Usually for these which-is-better questions we have to gather a few tidbits of Life Cycle Analysis, paste them together with our assumptions, and call it good. But Life Cycle Analysts are excited about e-books and e-newspapers, for some reason, and there is a shocking amount of data analysis out there. Enough to make my head feel all fuzzy inside. There are caveats as usual, but I am forced to report the general conclusion that e-books produce less CO2 emissions and use less water than conventional newspapers and books.
On e-books | By Umbra Fisk | Grist | Ask Umbra | 10 Dec 2008
So, our books are moving to electronics at last. There is technology that lets you hold the book in your hand but still has it on an electronic page. It’s not just the Amazon kindle. I want to try it; I can use the bookshelf space for so many other things!