I love books: the way they look, the way they feel, the amount of effort on the part of so many people to get the book into my hands, the thrill of beginning the first sentence, the hope that the subsequent pages will continue to enthrall me, the sadness upon reaching the final page, the parallel universe I inhabit while reading. I don't often reread books (poetry, plays, and Austen excluded), but I do return to them again and again for a particular line of dialogue or turn of phrase. How do I hold on to the lines that mean so much to me yet part with the books? I haven't figured that out yet, but I'm noodling on it.
One book I've read during the lull is Double Fold: Libraries and the Assault on Paper by Nicholson Baker. It's an exposé of America's libraries' strategy to save space, a strategy and methodology cooked up by a handful of folks with ties to the Defense and Intelligence industries; no thoughts wasted on book preservation—only book decimation and disposal. (They did, however, try to retain some content through microfiche.) Baker didn't just research the situation and bring it to the public. He became an activist in the cause and used his own savings to rescue runs of newspapers from the last century. He's a Paper Hero, but he hardly made a dent in what libraries toss.
Fortunately, I'm not of the library mindset, though I understand the space issue. I cherish books. Even the bad ones cause a twinge of . . . something when I consider throwing them out (seems dirty, illegal, unethical, altogether wrong). Which is not, for the record, part of my plan. I intend to sell or give my books to new homes and hearts.
That's it. I didn't want to come off as a callous reader. But don't think for a minute that I'm a book hoarder, though I see how easily I could cross that line.
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