Have you ever thought what awkward difficult characters books can be? Especially in a particular one disappearing just when you want it. I've spent half an hour searching my shelves for a particular book on Welsh history, whose whereabouts I 'm certain I knew only yesterday. But no, its sensed my approach and made off, and is no doubt hiding somewhere among a lot of other books of the same size and colour, or even slipped away down the back of a shelf, to lie gathering dust for ages, or wait until, despairing, I order a new copy from Amazon, when it will promptly pop back to where it should have been in the first place. There's a couple of which I now have three copies, as a result of the original one instilling its evil ways into the first new copy.
Of course, you might say, wouldn't a sometime librarian have his books in such perfect order, cunningly classified, that these misadventures could never happen? Err, not quite. In fact I know very few librarians, past or present, whose home bookshelves aren't in a state of total chaos. A rebellion against the enforced order of their working lives, maybe.
Normally I rely on memory for roughly where a particular book might be. But that would rely on me returning a volume to the same random place I got it from. And as I don't do that, the system quickly collapses. Others arrange their books by size and colour, the latter possibly working quite well... Not me of course, which is why I'm about to spend another half hour searching before ordering again from Amazon.
Though perhaps if I announce aloud my intention of purchasing a replacement, the little brute will think itself safe, and reappear.
Alternatively, it may be that the silence of a typical Welsh village Sunday afternoon is finally getting to me, and I'll be imagining that the books are talking to me, next.
Funny I should say that;I could have sworn I just heard a voice uncommonly like that of Madame Desfarge, singing a French Revolutionary anthem, coming from that copy of "Tale of Two Cities"... ;-0
Booklist for 'Interesting Times'
5 months ago
3 comments:
I do not trust people who arrange their books by color. That's books as interior design, not books that are read, IMHO.
Arranging books according to colour ranks alongside those 19th century English gentry who filled up their libraries with impressive-looking leather-bound voluumes of sermons (unread). And with present-day business tycoons and media stars who order books by the yard.
I know exactly what that is like. I have a book of English cottages which has been misplaced for over a year. It is out of print. It is somwhere in this house. I have books all over the place and a study with two walls of shelves. It is not there. Maybe I'll try talking about it and it will pop up from where ever. I do arrange my books by type - non-fiction, fiction, biography, etc. I mainly collect children's books, old ones I read as a child. Love them.
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