Sure, I’ll lend books to people if I think they’d love them, but I’d rather keep them all to myself. As I told my coworker, (if I can’t say it here, where can I?) my inner childhood self remains convinced that the world inside that book is contained within its covers. Therefore, I adorn my home with portals to these other worlds, with hundreds of stories that go on even when I’m not there as witness. I think this also used to (ok fine, still does) help me cope with the ending of any given story. It’s not really ending! There’s more, but I’m not privy to those pages. They’ll keep adventuring on my bookshelf while I’m asleep.
Look, I never said it wasn’t crazy. It’s just the truth. I also keep books as a sort of trophy and reminder for the places my mind has traveled. I have philosophy books from college, dictionaries, travel books, books I’ve never read, books I hated, books I loved: the works. It actually took me several moves before I finally threw away all my notebooks with class notes from school. It just feels like such a waste, you know?
I can’t bring myself to write in books, either. I used to hate when teachers made us do this – it felt like stabbing a tree, or something. Oh, do you guys not think about trees like people? I think I’m a wood nymph, folks. Probably should just call it now.
All of this is why I don’t want to buy an e-reader or even take books out of the library (I know, I need to get over that). But it’s not a TN blog post without a shameful secret, right? Right. So here it is: I never buy physical versions of our Boozy Book Club reads (except for Night Film, as you can see above). I only buy Kindle versions and read them on my laptop, phone, or iPad. I have an entirely different reading style and approach for guilty pleasure reads. And I speak only for myself when categorizing them as such. I know these characters for a month, it is finite, and then I’m done.
I also hate to admit that I don’t often re-read books. Certainly not until I feel I’m in a completely different life stage or mindset from my first reading. The only book I’ve re-read recently was The Passage, because the sequel finally came out.
Ok, I’ve said my piece. Now I want to hear about you! Do you keep books? What are your criteria for the ones you do save? Do you have an imagination as lively as mine?
I should note that the above pictures with books on the floor might make you think I intend to just have piles of books around my house. I just moved and don’t yet have a good bookcase – and also just found out that Ikea is discontinuing the best one ever, Expedit! Get it before it’s gone, folks.
