books as stuff

Here we are, back on the balcony, the dinner invitation having fallen through...

Margaret, in a comment on not-the-real blog asks:

I wish the ABC had sent me a box of 50 books, although a handy house extension to fit them in would be more useful. I await that post with interest, as the book situation here is out of control - how can I throw them out, when a piece of my soul resides in each? 

Have you noticed how houses in real estate ads have no books, and if you go to an open house all the books are gone?

 Hmm, well, nicely put but I don't know that a piece of my soul resides in each of the 50 books sent by the ABC (yet), tho beggars can't be chosers.

I plan to write some time on stuffology, but for now, I will just concentrate on the sub-category of books, a sub-category that does not plague all stuffeurs but is plaguesome nevertheless.

In my time as a blogger, I have been party to some conversations about the ways in which bloggers organise their books.  (Of course, bloggers have books in the way that they have cats.)  I began by organising mine by colour (mmm, a lot of orange, thanks to Penguin) and height; I graduated to alphabetical ordering after visiting the abode of Whitebait and Dr Dr Fraulein.  I'm backtracking to this, because there is some merit in the idea of books as decorative, tho there also seems to be a tipping point where they simply turn into clutter.

N.B. the answer that Margaret gives to her second question in a later comment:

Nah, real estate agents tell people to get the books out because they look like clutter. 

Sobering, eh?  In fact, they probably are clutter.  I had to come to terms with this when I left teaching, and was no longer in possession of an Academic Book Case in an Academic Office (well, it was kind of a mud-brick academic institution, but we did at least get a book case and an office with a door that locked for our troubles).  This necessitated buying two new small bookcases (one of which I assembled wrongly; smaller so I could still see the canvas hitherto hanging on the wall) and then fashioning a makeshift student-like bookcase from two planks and some bricks to shelve the burgeoning collection of CNF books in my bedroom.  In fact, there are bookcases in every room, except the laundry, and now another 50 books from the ABC to house.

I don't know where I'm going with this, because I have no real answer to The Problem of Books (a bit like The Problem of Pain or The Problem of Evil -- not!)  Part of the problem is that many of the books I own I've only read once, and I'm never sure whether I'll read them ever again, so why am I holding onto them? A hippyish/new-ager person (i.e. an older Gen-Xer like me caught in a bandwidth difficult to categorise) (or so I like to believe) once rudely drew my attention to how unecological old books were -- how much space, paper, etc, they took up, and encouraged me to give up clinging to them sentimentally.  After all, there are:

• Books one could never part with because they're deeply equated with some supposedly meaningful moment in one's life, even if it was Long Ago and Entirely Stupid. (e.g. Mates at Billabong)
• Books one could never part with because they're deeply equated with some supposedly meaningful moment in one's life and probably are of Eternal Cultural Significance (e.g. A Passage to India)
• Books that don't interest you much that you hold onto because they might be good syllabus material if ever you get a teaching job again (e.g. The Kadaitcha Sung)
• Books that someone who's now dead gave you that you would feel shitty about dumping (e.g. A Praise Anthology of Short Stories; A Junior Science Encyclopedia)
• Books from a long-lost moment in theoretical thought that no longer interests you and never really did (e.g. An Apprenticeship in Liberty; even An Introduction to Jacques Lacan)
• Books of obscure poetry that someone thought you might like (e.g. The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood)

In terms of note buying any more books, there is one possible answer, acc to Amazon, and that is a Kindle.  I was optimistic about this solution for a while, especially since I live in a remote area and am used to internet ordering, but now I'm skeptical.  I read a New Yorker article the other day that fulfilled my worst fears: (a) Kindle 2's screen is hard to read; (b) Not All the Books in the World are available on Kindle -- not by a long shot yet.

Another solution is: stop buying books and use the local library.  There are even books in Alice Springs library I've never read.

And of course (c): read the shipment of ABC books over the next year.

In relation to t'uther painful matter: culling (let's be up front).  Up until now, most of this concerned concealing the books one felt were too Daggy for Public Display, except for a Painful Moment during the Dissolution of the Budgewoi Holiday House, in which one was asked to bin all the books (yes, in a giant wheelie bin) that one did not think they could take back to Melbourne in their Macpack.  Ah yes; mother is a pragmatist.

So where were we?  Perhaps some kind of mathematical equation is in order to deal with the question of the Culling of Books, like:

If O = Obscurity, D = Design, S = Sentimentality, U = Potential Use Factor, X = Inescapable, Unquantifiable Soul Factor, De = Decay, A = Antique but not something useless from Ridiculous Past Theoretical Paradigms, and C = Cullability then:

C = O + [ D X S - {U + tanX x De}/A]

That's as far as I've got in this two-bedroom townhouse. 

Comments

[Angus]

I've been doing the local library thing lately for the first time in years - the good thing is that it frees you to read the kind of books that you might hold in your hand in a bookshop and think "can I really afford this? what if it's shit?" and so on. The other thing I've discovered to my delight is that if you ask your local library - mine anyway - to get a book in for you, they will usually do just that, and with admirable dispatch.

As an economy measure, more than an uncluttering one (I don't care if books are clutter, they are the best kind - but my god they're *expensive* these days) I've taken to only buying books when there's a reasonable chance I might want to read them again, or lend them to lots of friends, etc.

[fxh]

The dollar is so strong that I'm turning into an "online problem book buyer" next I'll be looking for a support group of fellow victims, I'll go on tv on one of those 6.00pm shows and blame someone else or I could just buy a self help book.

I've got a collection of books I keep because no one else might have them if I want them - Scientology and other LRH books, Mormon books, 3 or 4 different bibles, some weird kooky flying saucer religion books etc.

[Bernice]

Do not dispose of any of them. The Lost Ones will haunt you for the rest of your life. Inevitably, they will contain the pithy quote you need, the cut-out recipe for baked artichokes, and all of the $20 bills you zealously secreted in a vain attempt to have some cash left for the power bill.

[librarygirl]

Loved this post.

When I was a New Librarian a long time ago my non-fiction was shelved in dewey order AT HOME. Now it is just vague categories (gardening, cooking). The fiction is always alphabetical by author because I can't find things otherwise. For some reason shelves of hundreds of DVDS seem to be OK with real estate agents ( I automatically make nasty judgements about property owners when I see this) but books - no, cluttery.

I second Angus. Get things from your library for free or the cost of a reservation for a couple of dollars. If your region/library is crappy with no money join a bigger, richer service - anyone can join anywhere in Melbourne metro with proof of Victorian address.

[elsewhere]

Yes, I'll have to get back into the library thing.

Actually, I did find about $100 in a Frank Moorhouse books when I was moving house a few years ago. I must have stashed it there for some shared household payment, then forgotten about it.

[Pavlov's Cat]

Frank needs to hear that story. He would love it.

Bernice is right.

Whence this sudden urge to compute things as equations? I think you may be onto something, but I can't quite work out what.

Top post, and I think you have covered all the important categories.

[elsewhere]

I thought there might be more categories...I seem to write a better quality of post on the back of two G&Ts (again, Moorhousean, tho of course it would be martinis). The book was Grand Days.

I went to a maths school -- the Maths School, in fact, to go to in NSW. At the moment, I'm doing a job that involves much creative interpretation and writing of stats, so that may be it. A job for an organisation with a quite Moorhousean title.

[genevieve]

Can I post that equation to some library lists? It's way topical.
Great post.

[elsewhere]

Yes. Good luck with the trigonometry. It was written by someone of the cusp of drunkenness.

[suze]

I own (ie. can't get rid of) quite a few books in another category (or 2, or 3): old feminist books that are probably out of print now; old political (ie. lefty) books that are probably out of print now; and old lesbian/gay books that are etc. Most of these are from the 70s/80s.

I was just thinking recently how I never find money any more (ie old money of my own that I've left in clothes I haven't worn for ages.) Used to find it all the time. It must be that I'm more efficient - or poorer - these days at removing money when I take clothes off.

[suze]

And another thing - the free 'Sydney' mag (comes with SMH) had an article just this week about libraries and how borrowing has jumped about 15% in the past year (since GFC). I rediscovered our local library when son was a baby and it has become a very important local place for us - and I've increasingly noticed how crowded it gets, with so many people on laptops and at reading desks. This year I've managed to get thru university English course by borrowing every textbook rather than buying as I did in previous years. We have definitley reached our bookshelf limit as son's personal quota of books takes more and more space.

[Jennifer]

I loved this post too. I did a very painful cull a year or so ago, and I think I've managed to replace everything. It's amazing how they just morph into being on the bookshelf. Like suze I have a couple of bookshelves full of old feminist books that I can't imagine rereading, but I still like the fact that I read them once, so can't bring myself to get rid of them.

[Tracey Stevens]

Great post indeed El. What about, though, another category - of Books lent by friends and never returned? No matter whether or not one has read them, it seems impossible to cull these books. Even if the lender is living overseas / deceased / an ex who you never will talk to again..

Incidentally - I have at least one book of yours (that I can think of) in this category, and don't worry, I will read it one day and certainly won't throw it out. Something by... Barker?

[TPS]

El - how come my whole name came up?? has typepad changed?

on that note - going out of the office to the co-op bookshop and to get icecream - its 35 degrees in sydney today, or something crazy.

[elsewhere]

You can keep that one -- Pat Barker's Regeneration. I've already got a copy. My mother gave me her copy because it's 'not a book that can be in the same house as your father, dear.' Even tho he's dead now, I don't think she'd want it back. You've no idea how difficult it's been for me to palm her copy off onto someone else -- people read it and hand it back.

[Sal]

How about the L Solution: lend them to friends. Only about 10% will make their way back to you and then you have much less to pack, lift and unpack in any future moving ventures. Or the other L solution: donate the to the Library. But don't then commit yourself to the L decision: Leaving.