Recap from December 2024’s blog post.
*
How many books have come into the house in the month
of December? That’s easy. No books. So now I’ll set myself an easy challenge.
How many books will have come into the house by December’s end?
No more
than…five…is my guess. And I will try to hold true to that. How? I’ll just not
buy any. But wait a bit. There are things on order. Damn it. Yes. That’s true.
How many? I have no clue. You see, I don’t want to know, and I don’t need to
know.
*
Now that I’ve caught up to
January, how many books actually came into the house in the long month of
December? Two. Okay. That’s no more than five. Easy guess. But how many books
did I read in the month of December? With last month’s blog post in mind, I
decided to keep score throughout December. If I tracked the number of books in,
I had to track the number of books out. And something else, besides.
Zero books went out. One day, this will be a
problem.
What else, though? I knew I’d track the
number of books read, as well. December is a monumentally busy month, or feels
busier. Yes, there’s a holiday atmosphere, and that contributes – paradoxically
– to the feeling of great activity.
Maybe
it’s the colder weather that makes things feel as if more’s going on. Nat King
Cole never sang about those lazy, hazy,
crazy days of winter, after all.
How
many books did I read in the busy month, then? My tally says sixteen. Maybe
seventeen. Not sure if I noted the last one on a scrap of paper. We’ll say
sixteen, for sure. I was on a mad mission to read a book a day, but life
intruded. Could I read a book a day for a month? Yes, if I pick out loads of
short books to read. True, they’d be short. But…those light tomes still take up
space on the shelves. And a book read is a book read.
How many unread books are on my shelves?
Unknown. Books are crammed…everywhere. Across how many rooms? Oh, and hallways.
It’s a rule that I don’t keep books in the kitchen. Unless they are pamphlets.
Instruction manuals for kitchen gadgets. They go in a drawer, and are fine
there. One day, the kitchen gadget is done. The corresponding instruction book
is recycled.
No, the kitchen isn’t a tribute to clouds of
cookery, but steam does form on occasion. I kept a bookcase or two in the
kitchen for a short time while I rearranged things upstairs. But nothing
permanent sat in the kitchen on slick shelves that would attract condensation.
Never read in the bath. That’s a top tip.
I was told plumbers spend a ludicrous amount
of time fishing mobile phones from toilet bowls. Unjamming dead electronics
sounds like no fun. So…never answer the telephone while you are on the throne.
Maybe that’s a better tip than not reading in the bath.
Off the top of my head, I don’t know how
many bookcases there are here. And I don’t have to care. As I don’t know how
many books are on my shelves, I can’t really say how many unread books are on
my shelves.
If I
could divide the books into read and unread collections, gradually adjusting
the dividing line, a slow rising tide of reading, then I’d need an extra five
rooms. Books go where they fit. And to store them in read/unread sections is
impossible at this stage.
Instead: chaos. Occasionally, this means I
will accidentally read a book I thought I hadn’t read before. Chief suspect
here was a book on renaissance art. This was a gift. And it was time to read
that gift. Except, after delving in…yes, I realised I’d read it before.
It was a good book, so I finished it again.
What’s at the other end of the scale? A book I’ve walked past, convincing
myself I’ve read it. No, I don’t think so. But then…how would I know for sure.
Is such
a volume more likely to be wedged into the top end of a distant bookshelf?
Almost all books here are upright. And almost all books here have writing on
the spines. Almost all books here have spines readable if you tilt your head to
the right. There are exceptions.
Hardly any books lie flat. Those that do lie
across a line of books of equal height. The uppermost volume is almost always
connected to the books it lies atop. An author puts out one more book before
death. And there’s just no way to rearrange the books on shelves. Can’t be
done. But there is that tempting space on top of books…
I use that space rarely. While I still
have space elsewhere, I needn’t resort to using that awkward gap at the top.
Books that lie flat feel a bit isolated. Maybe I think I’ve read all of those.
Some books will remain unread…
Dictionaries. Those are dip-in tomes, and
you are a fool to read a dictionary from cover to cover. I say that having read
The Devil’s Dictionary in its
entirety. Trust me. It’s a dip-in book, too. Ah, well. A book read is a book
read, whether I liked it or not. At least I needn’t read the damned thing
twice.
How many books will come into the house this
year? I must cut back, as ever. Let books come in, but read more than you let
in. I must review the concept of sending books out. There’s charity. And
there’ll be gifts.
You can’t recycle hardback books. That’s
what charity shops are for. I’d have to think really badly of a paperback book
to recycle it. There are categories, I guess. Outdated books. But those might
be useful as snapshots of history. Would I feel the need to stare at those
snapshots? If not, do I need to store those?
Taking a look at the shelves above my desk,
I see they are accessible. The shelves below my desk are obscured by my desk.
There’s a book hierarchy. In this case, it’s a lower-archy. Some things I won’t
need quick access to. Until suddenly I do, and then I curse the arrangements.
What are the arrangements? They are
office-based. I can’t operate the computer and its many gadgets without
clamping a few USB hubs to the shelves. Books lurk behind the cables. Why waste
the space back there? It’s a bookshelf, after all.
Books in and books out. Need to work on that
second one. Books read and books unread. Then there are books read again. At
the thorny end of the scale there are abandoned books. Books I tried to read
and noped out of finishing…are few and far between.
You need to be really bad at writing to come
up with a book I won’t finish. Hell, my allergic reaction to Ambrose Bierce
half-killed me. But I made it through The
Devil’s Dictionary. Once. A second time would send me into author-phalactic shock.
Books damaged beyond reading? No fires and
no floods. There’s no mouldy old manual or worm-infested writing. Books
produced to the very limits of reading? I have a few. There’s a limit to the
concept of the tiny font. If I have to be miniaturised so that the letters appear
as vast sculptures on the horizon, then maybe rethink your book production
process.
Odds and ends. My entire library seems to be
made up of those. Massive manuals, tiny tomes, and a few items that barely
qualify as books – they are all here. I want to read all of them, apart from
the reference volumes. And I mean to dip into all of those.
Will I keep score this year? I still have
items on order, and feel I always will have. My guess for January is…two books
in. I am definitely cutting back…on books in. Books on? Well, books on the
shelves are going to keep living on those shelves. Worn-out books? I try to
look after them, so that’s a small category. Dusty books? I have no way to
avoid those. All bookcases with doors on them had the doors removed for reasons
of space. I don’t need to provide space in which to open the doors if I take
the doors away. Every room with books in becomes an aisle. And the upper hallway
has gone that way, too.
I think taking the doors off rooms is a step
too far. Going by the layout, I’d only get one extra bookshelf in here, and
that’s hardly worth the bother.
Yes, I have glossed over digital books. The
space they take up is time. Priority goes to physical books in front of me. And
to the left of me. To the right of me. Not behind me. I have some limits. Need to leave room for the chair at my back.
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