My Bookshelves
I had about 10 minutes of downtime this morning, when I was waiting to take my son to tennis. I hate downtime, unless I have something to read, and 10 minutes isn't really enough to settle into anything, except maybe a poem, which I was not in the mood for, so instead I decided to put away a few of the many books that are littering the various rooms of my house.
I have some nice built-in bookshelves in my living room, and I keep in them books that mean something to me. My husband doesn't really get this about me. He's a strictly library kind of person, and once he's read a book, he's done with it. I, on the other hand, feel a compelling need to own certain books. I have quite a few books that I read from the library, or books that someone lent me, that I loved so much I simply had to go out and buy them so I can put them on my bookshelf. For me, they're like artwook. I like to hold them, page through them, remember how much I loved reading them. I am loathe to lend them because I fear losing them.
Not that I've read everything on these bookshelves, mind you. I have a number of impressive books that I fully intend to read, someday when I'm stuck in the hospital with multiple fractures that leave me with nothing to do but heal and read for months on end. Books like War and Peace. Moby Dick. Solzhenitsyn's August 1914.
Then there are books I buy for the sheer beauty of them. The Hollanders' translation of Dante's Purgatorio comes to mind. I picked up this gorgeous tome (list price $35) at the Barnes & Noble bargain table for $6.00. How could I not buy it? I also have a number of gorgeous art books from various museums I've visited. On my coffee table right now is Andrew Wyeth Memory & Magic, published in connection with the Wyeth exhibit last year at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the High Museum of Art in Atlanta. The exhibit left me breathless. I had to own a piece of it, even if that meant only the art book. And underneath that one is the soft-cover Great French Paintings from the Barnes Foundation. If you've never been to the Barnes, I urge you to get in your car right now and go. The Musee D'Orsay in Paris has nothing on the Barnes.
Sometimes I go online to find first editions of books that are special to me, and once in a while I get lucky and find one that is even signed by the author, like when I bought Break, Blow, Burn (Camille Paglia Reads Forty-Three of the World's Best Poems.) I have first editions of The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck, The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen, Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer, Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon, and A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers. I hope one day to meet these phenomenal writers (obviously not Ms. Buck) and ask them to sign my books.
I try not to be one of those people who buy certain books only because they look good on the bookshelf. I do know people who have books carefully displayed on a small table in the hallway between the bathroom and the living room. "Look at me," they seem to suggest, "I have good taste." But I have a sneaking suspicion that these books have not actually been read, and instead have merely been placed, like a vase of silk flowers or a silver bowl, to be admired and dusted but not actually used for anything.
What am I reading now? I've devoted the summer to Harry Potter and Jane Austen. Books I will keep when I'm done, on my bookshelf.
I have some nice built-in bookshelves in my living room, and I keep in them books that mean something to me. My husband doesn't really get this about me. He's a strictly library kind of person, and once he's read a book, he's done with it. I, on the other hand, feel a compelling need to own certain books. I have quite a few books that I read from the library, or books that someone lent me, that I loved so much I simply had to go out and buy them so I can put them on my bookshelf. For me, they're like artwook. I like to hold them, page through them, remember how much I loved reading them. I am loathe to lend them because I fear losing them.
Not that I've read everything on these bookshelves, mind you. I have a number of impressive books that I fully intend to read, someday when I'm stuck in the hospital with multiple fractures that leave me with nothing to do but heal and read for months on end. Books like War and Peace. Moby Dick. Solzhenitsyn's August 1914.
Then there are books I buy for the sheer beauty of them. The Hollanders' translation of Dante's Purgatorio comes to mind. I picked up this gorgeous tome (list price $35) at the Barnes & Noble bargain table for $6.00. How could I not buy it? I also have a number of gorgeous art books from various museums I've visited. On my coffee table right now is Andrew Wyeth Memory & Magic, published in connection with the Wyeth exhibit last year at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the High Museum of Art in Atlanta. The exhibit left me breathless. I had to own a piece of it, even if that meant only the art book. And underneath that one is the soft-cover Great French Paintings from the Barnes Foundation. If you've never been to the Barnes, I urge you to get in your car right now and go. The Musee D'Orsay in Paris has nothing on the Barnes.
Sometimes I go online to find first editions of books that are special to me, and once in a while I get lucky and find one that is even signed by the author, like when I bought Break, Blow, Burn (Camille Paglia Reads Forty-Three of the World's Best Poems.) I have first editions of The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck, The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen, Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer, Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon, and A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers. I hope one day to meet these phenomenal writers (obviously not Ms. Buck) and ask them to sign my books.
I try not to be one of those people who buy certain books only because they look good on the bookshelf. I do know people who have books carefully displayed on a small table in the hallway between the bathroom and the living room. "Look at me," they seem to suggest, "I have good taste." But I have a sneaking suspicion that these books have not actually been read, and instead have merely been placed, like a vase of silk flowers or a silver bowl, to be admired and dusted but not actually used for anything.
What am I reading now? I've devoted the summer to Harry Potter and Jane Austen. Books I will keep when I'm done, on my bookshelf.
posted by calabresewoman | 1:14 PM
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