I'd like to say a few words (or many words) about my books. They would probably be more lovely and insightful if I wrote them when I was more awake, but I've found that when I put off posts they never happen the way I originally intended.
I was just looking at my books tonight as I searched for places to cram in a few new purchases (I stopped by the bent bookstore tonight - real name: The Book Garden; number of times I've called it that: maybe 2 - and picked up a book of Holocaust poetry, an old book of Faulkner short stories and
Middlesex, which I seem to remember Katherine mentioning as yet another book she loved that Oprah stole. The copy of
Middlesex that I bought cost two dollars and had a sticky spot where someone had taken off the book club sticker.) and as I found a place for my Faulkner collection next to James Joyce's
Dubliners and cozied Jeffrey Eugenides between Anna Quindlen and Khaled Hosseini (of course the Holocaust poetry went next to the WWI poetry), I started thinking about why I buy books and why I love my little collection so much.
Whenever I move to or from an apartment, unpacking my books is my first priority. As soon as I have enough space in my room to actually reach the bookshelf, I spend at least a few hours lovingly organizing and reorganizing my novels, poetry books, short story collections, church books. There isn't always a set of hard and fast rules when I put my books on the shelf; I try to keep an author's works together, but if the copies I have of various books are drastically different it doesn't happen; I try to keep poetry together, but if a poet is also an author I may put the books in one section or another; really pretty books all tend to go together.
My favorite part about my books is remembering where I got them or who got me to read them, thinking about my experience with them or looking forward to reading them. This is why I don't typically keep books that I didn't care for - I didn't really want to look at
Wicked on my shelf because I got 1/3 of the way through and didn't want to finish it . . . ever. And unlike
Les Miserables and
Crime and Punishment, which give me a guilty but pleasant feeling when I see the bookmark halfway through, some books just take up space. My bottom shelf has my very lovely little copy of
Jane Eyre - not the copy I read the first time, which was my mom's, but the one I wanted for my collection after I fell in love with the book. It also holds a not-too-spectacular copy of
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, which I read on Ty's recommendation after seeing the play in London. My used copy of
To Kill a Mockingbird reminds me of Spence and Gregory Peck. When I see my neat little boxed set of
The Lord of the Rings, I remember the beat up paperbacks that I read originally - the copy of
The Hobbit with an ugly Bilbo that Clark just hated, a copy that makes me smile because I remember Clark reading the first few chapters of it to me; the copy of
Fellowship of the Ring with a duct tape binding; the copy of
Return of the King with a cover I made for it because after going through at least 2 or three other Winegar children it had none. My half shelf of Shakespeare shares space with a half shelf of modern and postmodern novels - the books on both ends of the shelf have impacted the way I think. My poetry shelf is well-stocked, and I fondly remember buying
The Spoon River Anthology after reading
Our Town in 11th grade (I don't remember why we read a poem from Masters as well, but it had an impact on me), hauling my copy of T.S. Eliot on vacation with me where I dissected "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" for myself for the first time, ordering the British copy of Seamus Heaney's
District and Circle because the American cover was silly.
I have a large collection of used books, among them my prized copy of
The Seven Pillars of Wisdom (a gift from Treb), nearly everything that I own by Steinbeck, lovely old copies of
Madame Bovary and
Shirley and
All Quiet on the Western Front, and an entire shelf of Alistair McLean novels (the last being a collection obtained through my dad, and one which I love). I have several books borrowed from Treb -
The Bridge of San Luis Rey (which I read and loved),
Invisible Man (which I've been meaning to read for years and still haven't)
, some feminist writings and literary criticism that I'm sure I'll get to eventually. This is right and proper, because I can also see the holes in my library - Treb has my copy of
Tess of the d'Urbervilles and a couple of others and Ty has
The Things They Carried, which I also made my dad read. My mom has a stack of books I've lent her sitting by her bed; my sister-in-law just returned a stack and still has
Just Listen and
The Truth About Forever. I love sharing my books just as I love reading the comments when I buy used books and people have added their own marginalia. Tonight I found this at the bottom of a Faulkner story called "Dry September" in the used collection I just bought: "Faulkner is wonderful. Maybe his work will eventually help women, as well as the Negro, change all of this!" It's like a little present to me to feel that connection with someone else about a book, especially in one like this that I haven't even read; it's exactly the kind of thing I would write in a book.
I think my favorite thing about my books is considering all of the books I haven't read yet and feeling the excitement for reading them someday. At Christmas I traded a pair of shoes that didn't fit for a book of short stories by Dave Eggers. It makes me smile whenever I see it on the shelf. I think about how someday I really will read
Don Quixote and
Anna Karinina. I can't wait for the day when I finally settle down to read about Shackleton in
Endurance, learn to write poetry from
The Ode Less Traveled, take a leisurely walk down
Swann's Way, or again visit the rich prose of Toni Morrison or the stark landscape of Cormac McCarthy. Now that I am halfway through
East of Eden, I think of the year that it sat on my shelf gathering dust before a combination of Makalya, Katherine, and James Dean finally convinced me to pick it up in earnest (not to mention the contribution of Steinbeck himself, who had me sold after I read
Of Mice and Men one weekend).
Someday I will have room for more than one bookcase and will, I hope, be able to stop double stacking my books and putting two shelves of them out in the hall and another shelf and a half on my stereo stand. Someday, I'll have bookcases filled with children's books - more Dr. Seuss and Roald Dahl and Lloyd Alexander than I already have (which in the case of the latter two will be a feat, since I already have large numbers of books by both, and in the case of the former will be a pleasure). Someday, perhaps I will not be so interested in wading through postmodern novels and poetry, though I doubt it. Because on nights like tonight, after reading a truly beautiful passage of Steinbeck and thinking back to other beautiful passages that have changed my mind and heart, I feel grateful that I find joy in good books, and I feel elated when I look at my shelf of bargain books and impulse buys and think of all of the joy that I haven't tapped yet.
Sometimes I'm pretty sure I'm a know-it-all of the most annoying sort. I don't try to be, but I remember a lot of stuff, so I do know some weird stuff lots of people don't. The problem is that I seem to have this compulsion to make that known to everyone else. If I knew something someone else said, I seem to need to say, "I knew that," to someone, and if I didn't, don't I always have an excuse?
