I have too many books,which as we know,spoil the brothel,or am I thinking of something else? At my zenith when I had a big house, every surface not decked with tarty clothing was crammed with books. And now I am in a very small flat. I don't like parting with books. It seems rude,when someone has gone to all the trouble of writing one, to throw it out. I used to choose to simply ignore the books I didn't care for or would never read. But my bookcases thereby became dangerous,swaying edifices likely to crush the unwary.I have not forgotten what happened to Leonard Bast in "Howard's End". The poor beast was being socially mobile and bettering himself like crazy through reading, when WHAM! a huge symbolic bookcase flattened him.
So many of my books now live in Bootle,with "Storage King". I can visit them if necessary,I have keys.Oh dear,where are those keys? I am very bad indeed with keys, and consequently the little imps who prey on humanity from the Netherworld have arranged it so that I always have to have a key ring that resembles one held by St Peter in an allegorical painting. I lose them,of course, everyone does that, but I also break,fold,spindle and mutilate them. They bend in my nerveless fingers, and snap off in locks. I have new ones cut and when I try them they have shapeshifted in my handbag overnight. When I was a teacher,I had to give them over to one of my students, in order to gain egress to the classroom,the stock cupboard, the photocopier, the gin drawer..or we would all have been standing outside till nightfall. They were very sweet about it,and also knew that I left things all over the place."Now Miss, have you got the register and your handbag and your fags?" They thought I was a bit dotty but harmless.
I didn't ever leave the Giant Baby on the bus,even though everyone I knew put bets on this,and not in my favour. Well,it takes you a while to get used to having one. A friend of mine did actually do this. She noticed almost at once.
Mine used to sit facing me on public transport,until I realised that the reason he had been so pacific was that he had been working away on opening all the buttons of my shirt. I once flashed the W9 with a bra that I would not have chosen to display. He sat firmly facing outwards from then on.
So,the book problem. I may have to cull the collection further,if only to free up a few spaces in which to lose keys. There really is no reason for a grown-up woman to own a copy of "Shadow, The Sheepdog". But you never know when you might have a really bad day and need to read a Monica Dickens for the umpteenth time. And you need P.G Wodehouse for warding off the blues. And M.R James for when life is insufficiently creepy and there's a high wind in the eaves.
I'm not an intellectual, so I don't have to keep the impressive ones if I don't happen to like them. I don't believe in self-help tomes,because I consider them to be like diet books, useless,embarrassing, and easily replaced by two sentences used frequently by my Grandmother "Control yourself and behave yourself". I have never felt the slightest urge,after a cursory examination, to read "The Dice Man" "Wild Swans" Zen and the Art of anything,or any books set in Borneo, Australia, South Africa ,or the Land Of Magical Realism. But I am fond of Kipling, and do it most days.
I think we know a Kindle isn't going to work,don't we, boys and girls?
So it's heigh- ho to the Charity Shop and the Boot Sale. And this time I will take handcuffs,so as to not come back with the same number of books, only with different titles. Yes, they do furnish a room, but perhaps not to the exclusion of a futon? The GB backs off from them as the Nosferatu from garlic;he has seen what they have done to his Mother and regards all printed matter not moving on a screen as both antedeluvian and potentially hazardous. I have tried coercion, stealth and bribery. "What To DO When Your Child Won't Read?" Must be a book on that, somewhere....
So many of my books now live in Bootle,with "Storage King". I can visit them if necessary,I have keys.Oh dear,where are those keys? I am very bad indeed with keys, and consequently the little imps who prey on humanity from the Netherworld have arranged it so that I always have to have a key ring that resembles one held by St Peter in an allegorical painting. I lose them,of course, everyone does that, but I also break,fold,spindle and mutilate them. They bend in my nerveless fingers, and snap off in locks. I have new ones cut and when I try them they have shapeshifted in my handbag overnight. When I was a teacher,I had to give them over to one of my students, in order to gain egress to the classroom,the stock cupboard, the photocopier, the gin drawer..or we would all have been standing outside till nightfall. They were very sweet about it,and also knew that I left things all over the place."Now Miss, have you got the register and your handbag and your fags?" They thought I was a bit dotty but harmless.
I didn't ever leave the Giant Baby on the bus,even though everyone I knew put bets on this,and not in my favour. Well,it takes you a while to get used to having one. A friend of mine did actually do this. She noticed almost at once.
Mine used to sit facing me on public transport,until I realised that the reason he had been so pacific was that he had been working away on opening all the buttons of my shirt. I once flashed the W9 with a bra that I would not have chosen to display. He sat firmly facing outwards from then on.
So,the book problem. I may have to cull the collection further,if only to free up a few spaces in which to lose keys. There really is no reason for a grown-up woman to own a copy of "Shadow, The Sheepdog". But you never know when you might have a really bad day and need to read a Monica Dickens for the umpteenth time. And you need P.G Wodehouse for warding off the blues. And M.R James for when life is insufficiently creepy and there's a high wind in the eaves.
I'm not an intellectual, so I don't have to keep the impressive ones if I don't happen to like them. I don't believe in self-help tomes,because I consider them to be like diet books, useless,embarrassing, and easily replaced by two sentences used frequently by my Grandmother "Control yourself and behave yourself". I have never felt the slightest urge,after a cursory examination, to read "The Dice Man" "Wild Swans" Zen and the Art of anything,or any books set in Borneo, Australia, South Africa ,or the Land Of Magical Realism. But I am fond of Kipling, and do it most days.
I think we know a Kindle isn't going to work,don't we, boys and girls?
So it's heigh- ho to the Charity Shop and the Boot Sale. And this time I will take handcuffs,so as to not come back with the same number of books, only with different titles. Yes, they do furnish a room, but perhaps not to the exclusion of a futon? The GB backs off from them as the Nosferatu from garlic;he has seen what they have done to his Mother and regards all printed matter not moving on a screen as both antedeluvian and potentially hazardous. I have tried coercion, stealth and bribery. "What To DO When Your Child Won't Read?" Must be a book on that, somewhere....
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