Saturday, August 25, 2018

Books and More Books



This has been a day for selecting books to be donated to my favorite family used bookstore. It is a sometimes reckless process and I have, on occasion, found myself buying back books I once gave away.

But the sorting is necessary and there is plenty of second-guessing. [I just retrieved The Psychology of Dictatorship from a stack. That was a close call.]

Finding books that had been forgotten is one of the small joys. The really old books can be very hard to let go. They often have signatures of departed loved ones and so deserve special protection particularly if there is also some eccentric aspect tied to a personality. [Did she really study Latin? Why did he have that book on mining?]

The dining room table is the current holding area and it is getting filled.

Time well spent.

2 comments:

strikeholddoc said...

I read recently that dining rooms in the American household are becoming used less often, and may be becoming extinct. See https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/01/16/dining-rooms-becoming-extinct_n_6418526.html

You, sir, may be leading the way to revitalizing that room to serve now as the Home Lending Library! I can relate to the pain of letting go any book with a link to family or event...

Michael Wade said...

Ha!

Thanks for the link.

My wife has already made it clear that the dining room is to be returned to its former state so my invention won't last.

I have made a special stack of books that had been forgotten but which once were on my "intended to read list." Those will not be leaving. I look at that stack and compliment myself on my taste and then wonder what could have distracted me.

Life, I suppose.

Michael