Joe Queenan has written an essay in the Wall Street Journal (based on his new book, [amazon_link id=”0670025828″ target=”_blank” ]One For The Books[/amazon_link]) about how he became addicted to books.
[amazon_image id=”0670025828″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]One for the Books[/amazon_image]
Books, books, books. I love them too. I always read books about books: Susan Hill’s [amazon_link id=”1846682665″ target=”_blank” ]Howard’s End is On The Landing[/amazon_link]; Francis Spufford’s [amazon_link id=”0571214673″ target=”_blank” ]The Child That Books Built[/amazon_link]; Ann Fadiman’s[amazon_link id=”0140283706″ target=”_blank” ] Ex Libris[/amazon_link], and so on.
The best bit of Queenan’s very funny essay is his defence of the need for books, the physical objects. He writes:
“Books as physical objects matter to me, because they evoke the past. A Métro ticket falls out of a book I bought 40 years ago, and I am transported back to the Rue Saint-Jacques on Sept. 12, 1972, where I am waiting for someone named Annie LeCombe. A telephone message from a friend who died too young falls out of a book, and I find myself back in the Chateau Marmont on a balmy September day in 1995. ….
None of this will work with a Kindle. People who need to possess the physical copy of a book, not merely an electronic version, believe that the objects themselves are sacred. Some people may find this attitude baffling, arguing that books are merely objects that take up space. This is true, but so are Prague and your kids and the Sistine Chapel. Think it through, bozos. …. There is no e-reader or Kindle in my future.”
I read this inwardly shouting, ‘Yes! Yes!” I too use travel tickets as bookmarks and leave them in the book, the better to remember reading them the cafe in Verona or on the flight to Belfast.
Flying back from Belfast
The part Queenan misses out it the joy of second hand books and bookshops. On my flight back from Belfast I finished reading a beaten-up old Leo Malet story about his detective Nestor Burma, [amazon_link id=”B003BPT2L4″ target=”_blank” ]L’homme au sang bleu[/amazon_link].
L’homme au sang bleu
I bought it on our summer holiday in Brittany in this marvellous warren-like bookstore, open only in the afternoons, seducing tourists as they drive past towards Cap Frehel.
Bouquinerie
I have many objections to e-readers, but perhaps the biggest is that they prevent the sharing of books. I can’t read the same books as my husband, who has a dreadful e-book habit, so I can’t talk to him about them. I couldn’t put e-thrillers I’ve read on the book-swap shelf at the local station. I wouldn’t be able to take them to the charity shop or sell them to a second hand bookstore. But what kind of civilisation would we be without second hand bookstores?
Although agreeing with much of what you say the e-book does have its place. For example, my daughter has had to go into hospital for a couple of days and whereas a heap of books would be difficult, and e-book reader is easy-peasy and contains enough to last for months
I should also say that both my wife and myself have our own e-reader and we can, and do, read the same book at the same time with the purchased item legally available to more than one e-reader registered to the same account
It seems my husband doesn’t have the technological know-how to share his e-books with me on my iPad…. who’d have thought it?
I love books and I love reading. I have too many books and too many ebooks. And I struggle to walk past a secondhand bookshop without going in, but too little space in my house means I have to read ebooks too. Plus I have a lot of books in storage in another country.
I once read that humans are the means by which books are colonising the Earth….
Last year I forced myself to part with around 200 books, including some that I’d had since childhood. Some went to charity shops and the rest to the bookself at West Ealing station. I used to do an annual trawl of charity shops but I’ve had to stop because they take up so much space, so just buy the occasional book now and then. My partner thought about getting an e-reader but wants to read books he already has and doesn’t want to buy them again in that form. I’d hate to miss out on the cover art which I find as interesting as the book. Music downloads have already deprived me of that pleasure. By the way, the bookshelf at the station was mentioned on the Vanessa Feltz show last year. I was there later that day and the message had clearly reached a lot of people as there was a group huddled around it. Great idea for recycling books that aren’t considered good enough for charity shops.
The West Ealing station shelf seems quite well used, although it was a bit empty last time I looked – maybe I should kick a few candidates off my shelves to top it up!
Book swaps are great – they do absorb a load of physical books – CHRIS does a great job with yours at west Ealing – ours at Acton central absorbs over 200 a week – and of course not evokes bit my life has room for both. Astonishingly not one “shades of grey” donated yet – maybe cos they are all electonic?
Great to hear that you’ve used the West Ealing station bookswap Diane. We try to keep it topped up as much as we can, but as you say, sometimes it’s almost too popular! Building on success there and Sara’s in Acton we’re trying to get swaps put into stations all across London. We landfill or pulp millions of books every year in the UK, and hopefully this might help to save a few of them!
I’ll try to add a couple of volumes next time I’m there….