Bookslide
Did you add to your collection of books this Christmas? I did, to my surprise. I was pleased but also concerned – I vividly remember rushing round on Christmas Eve trying to find a tiny crack somewhere, anywhere, to squeeze various books that had been sitting around. And suddenly I’ve got more!
The gift labels were amusing. In my mother’s handwriting they said:
“from Book Claus”
“from More Book Claus”
“from Book Claus again”
Eighteen books.
I will have to do a lot of reading to even the score! Still trying to read and dispose – I must have about 3,000 books altogether, though I haven’t been keeping up with my book database recently. Don’t laugh, the database is amazingly useful when you’re trying to keep track of that many books. Imagine when you suddenly want to check a poem so you can quote it correctly, consult a pet care book for advice, look for bear or cat names from your favourite book of spirits, fairies, gnomes and goblins – or conceive a burning desire to take War and Peace to bed. Where did you store the relevant book? Is it somewhere at the back of this bookcase or that, or buried deep in a tottering pile in another room? Do you even still have it, or did somebody borrow it?
You can also see why I’m desperately trying to reduce my book collection – but I feel I can only let them go after reading them.
Ironically, when I opened one of my new Christmas books, it fell open at a page where it showed two big bookcases. It tutted over the fact that you could even see the books reflected in the mirror. “This is bad feng shui” it said. “You are overwhelmed by books.” How did it know? Anyway, I really HAVE all those books. No mirrors. But I disagree about the bad feng shui. A house without books is a poor place indeed.
Living in Scotland, UK; I work from home as an editor and pet-minder. I was born profoundly deaf and am no stranger to agoraphobia. I began renting out my house and have moved upstairs at my mother’s place. I used to have an Oriental Ticked Tabby (
