Ode to My Bookshelf
Posted by Moose on November 16th, 2009. Filed under: Uncategorized.I enjoy telling people I have the neck of a swan and the eyes of a mole. I don’t really have the neck of a swan – unless swans are notable for tendons that pop alarmingly when they grin with enthusiasm and I’m not convinced swans ever grin with enthusiasm, any more than the Queen Mother grinned with enthusiasm; it simply isn’t decorous. But I do have the eyes of a mole – which is to say, mostly blind.
There are two reasons I can’t find my glasses without a groping hand when they’re a mere six inches away:
1) Biology. Both my parents have worn glasses for at least 50 years each. So that’s a solid century of bad eyesight in my immediate gene pool. Toss in my brother and me and the number jumps to 130. One hundred and thirty years of glasses-wearing in my nuclear family. There’s no way to dodge that sad fate.
2) All those evenings I dutifully went to bed at the proper time, waited half an hour to elude suspicion, and then unearthed my stash of novels and a flashlight from behind the dust ruffle to read under the covers with light provided by two double A batteries and the lingering scent of guilt.
By the age of 10, I was wearing glasses the size and width of Coke bottles. And I blame it on Laura Ingalls Wilder. And Anne Shirley. And Mark Twain. And Claudia from The Babysitters’ Club.
Everyone loves stories – it’s genetically programmed into us. Telling tales in the caves is how we learned that fire is great for roasting woolly mammoth meat, but painful if you thrust your hand into it. (“Grog stick hand in flame. Grog go ‘Ouch!’”) It’s how our history was passed along before the human race learned to write it down and store it in triplicate in metal file cabinets. (Ah, the world before bureaucracy.) Books, movies, radio, TV, theater, music – all to tell stories, and all written by someone just like you or me. It’s a collective consciousness that holds the ideas and opinions and loves of people whose thoughts would’ve otherwise been long since lost.
Books you read as a child help form your character, just as the books you read as an adult help form your thought and your mental world. Stories offer new perspectives, help build compassion through empathy, offer an escape, a chance to visit countries and places you would never see otherwise. Plus, it’s fun. Anticipating the next book out by your favorite author, or the next episode of your favorite TV show is like anticipating Christmas. You know, those Christmases before you had your own credit card. Few things are better than finding a new favorite book via a chance decision at the bookstore or a friend who exclaims, “You must read this! Now! Here, take my copy.”
(Also, I’m a giant nerd. Hi.)
(Bonus: My favorite book synopsis of all time.)
(Thus endeth the extraneous parentheses.)
I live in an apartment the size of a hallway, so most of my books are in storage. I miss my books. I want all my books where I can see them, where I can run my finger along their spines and remember the party I left early to finish reading Kissing in Manhattan or that I was assigned Moby Dick in three different classes in high school and college and HAVE YET TO FINISH IT. Especially that chapter about sperm whale oil, holy mother of the Easter Bunny.
In the midst of the occasional disappointment in love or work, I think: “Well, at least I still have books.” Annoyances are soothed by the thought of climbing into bed with a new novel. If I was bricked into a bookstore by some rampaging psychotic with a trowel and a cement truck, I would be perfectly content for weeks and weeks. Books have been a main source of comfort and joy my entire life.
The internet is propelling rapid change and so who knows where the publishing industry will be in five years, but I know our universal need for stories will prevail – whether they’re printed on paper, sent through cyberspace, or written in sharpie on the sidewalk.
All this to say: I like books. The end.
November 16th, 2009 at 9:32 pm
I like books, too. The end.
November 16th, 2009 at 9:39 pm
I was such a super-dork that when I was naughty, my punishment was NO READING BEFORE BED. A fact that my parents vehemently deny, but my brother and I both remember this being my particular brand of torture. And? They made me keep my door open so they could check for the under cover flashlight reading. LAME.
November 16th, 2009 at 9:44 pm
I never really thought about the fact that I needed glasses by 5th grade and the fact that I read pretty much every waking moment when I was little were connected. Kind of explains a lot.
I miss my books too, finally getting back into reading during my lunch breaks because it’s been too long.
November 16th, 2009 at 9:45 pm
And me!
November 16th, 2009 at 10:10 pm
What we’re missing here though is the ever so important question: what is your FAVORITE book? Yes, I’m asking you to just choose one.
November 17th, 2009 at 2:03 am
Amen.
November 17th, 2009 at 7:25 am
I love books and stories. When I was a kid I would take books with me everywhere. We lived in a small town, but if we were going to the grocery store (10 minutes away) or the post office (5 minutes), I’d bring a book. This has not changed as I’ve gotten older… Great post.
November 17th, 2009 at 8:20 am
My sentiments exactly. And I am also blind. As I think back to all the times I strained to read in low light, I don’t wonder why.
November 17th, 2009 at 9:49 am
Sigh. I love this. Everything about it.
xox
November 17th, 2009 at 10:54 am
One of the first things I did once I’d moved back to the west coast, and generally decided I wasn’t likely to leave, was to retrieve the books. And even though they’ve been sitting in vaguely embarrassing giant piles since then (argh) I still love having them around.
(You might also enjoy this wherein a very funny guy writes about reading Twilight at length. I have not actually read the book, but since I read this I feel I’ve read the far, far funnier version.)
November 17th, 2009 at 11:43 am
Great post! As someone who took it upon herself to write more book reports than anyone else in her fourth-grade class (and fifth-grade class too, come to think of it), I can really relate to your having been a bookish kid.
Most of my books are in storage too, but I’ll be liberating them the weekend after next. I’ve really missed them.
And I can sympathize with you on the glasses thing, oh yes.
November 17th, 2009 at 12:17 pm
To books! Hear, hear!
I must say, I love, love, love reading on my phone but I still like the company of a few good tomes in my apartment. Now if I actually buy a paper book, it’s fetishized. It’s very very old, very very rare, or hopefully both. The cost per square foot of San Francisco real estate pushed me to it.
November 17th, 2009 at 6:00 pm
I am a total book geek, too. (Obviously, based on my job). What I really wanted to say though is that this post made me realize that you’d probably like working here, too. Here’s our website — readingprograms.org I don’t know if we have any job openings now, but I’ll keep my ear to the ground for you
November 18th, 2009 at 2:52 pm
“Well, at least I still have books.”
This exact thought has comforted me more times than I’d really like to admit.
November 18th, 2009 at 11:52 pm
There have been a few times where I have been without a TV in my abode. I never minded, as long as I had my books (and music!).
Books that shape our character during childhood . . . I remain aware of – and grateful for – how ‘The Secret Garden’ taught me about the power of positive thinking.
November 19th, 2009 at 8:27 am
I like books, too. I also love beautiful bookcases and I look forward to moving somewhere else so that I can have lovely bookcases filled with my lovely books.
November 19th, 2009 at 3:13 pm
I know, I know, I know. Laura Ingalls Wilder, Anne Shirley, etc. In trouble at school all the time for reading under my desk during class. I completely agree with our passion for stories and the way we make sense of the world through them.
I have to recommend that you visit fray.com – it’s a wonderful quarterly of true stories, submitted by folks like us. Created and run by Derek Powazek, a local SF dude who is very nice. I got a subscription last year for Christmas and just got issue 3 in the mail and had a jumping up and down in excitement moment in front of my cats and BF. Maybe you will like it too.
November 20th, 2009 at 3:02 pm
I love books. I actually took a photo on my iPhone of this wall of books at IKEA because a whole wall of bookshelves, to store my books? Is my idea of heaven.