How Many Books Do You Need?
Nine years ago I moved seven times in ten months. I got so tired of moving my books that I sold them to a used bookstore. They gave me something like $300 credit, and after looking over shelves crammed with Harlequin romance, 70’s sci-fi, and fifteen hundred copies of The Joy Luck Club, I threw away my receipt, thinking I’d simplified my life. A personal library is a fucking problem, a way of telling house guests, “Hey, look how I’ve weighed my life down with something I can borrow for free from the library.”
I moved last weekend—the first time in over four years. I filled the entire bed of a Dodge Ram, the rear struts groaning, with books, cheap books, books I bought online for less than a dollar, some books, like Kenzaburo Oe’s Somersault, and Being and Nothingness I bought, knowing I would never read them. As I marched another fifty-pound box upstairs, I asked myself why I had to own so many books. In the past, I’ve given myself a number of excuses. I need to write marginalia in what I’m reading. Just the act of holding a pen makes me a better reader, more analytical, less likely to be swept off by the plot. I may want to read it again, or I’ll loan them to a few friends. I used to fantasize that if the world came to an end—the post-apocalyptic kind—I would have enough books in my kitchen to restart society. Once you get past a certain number, you have to acknowledge that there’s something obsessive going on, something Howard Hughes-esque, without the jars of piss and war footage.
I don’t care what kind of shape the books are in, if the covers are torn off, the pages wavy from water damage. I even have a few from the New Orleans Public Library that smell so bad like mold that I can’t even read them. In the beginning, I tried to get enough shelves for my books, to make them presentable, something to be proud of.
A friend of mine has an immaculate personal library. It’s organized alphabetically and by the nationality of the author. The books look as unmarred as the brand name embossed into a bar of soap. He arranges his furniture around his bookshelves so that you’re forced to consider how broadly he reads. But I’m not that organized. My books are left open face down, a house of cards on my nightstand. Every couple of months, they spill on the floor, pissing my girlfriend off if it’s the middle of the night.
A personal library, the kind for display, doesn’t suit the way I read. I probably own eighty books right now that I haven’t read, but I can’t find some of them. There are books for the bedroom, the office, the living room, my car—wherever I happen to be. I can only read twenty pages at a time. As a matter of fact, I’m a slow reader, developmentally disabled slow, maybe twenty pages an hour. I’m reading seven books right now, switching books every couple of days whenever what I’m reading dries up. It’ll take me a month or two to finish a particular book, even longer if it slips behind my nightstand.
In our new house, I have an office, the window blocked by boxes of books. My brother-in-law looked over the room and casually said I should make some built-in shelves. Looking over the walls, I considered how many more books I would be able to get.
We should start a support group. Hi, I’m Laura, and I’m addicted to books.
I know my husband would love it if I could shake my addiction (and believe me, my library is small compared to others I know)–he’s recently begun imposing library books on me. Which is fine. I like the library. And I don’t need to mark up books or bend back the binding. Plus library books smell good. At least the old ones do.
I think the reason I’ve always resisted library books is that I love to loan. I love to talk to someone–especially non-literary folk–and be able to say, “I have that book–you can borrow it sometime.” And then we can talk about it–which, when you have as many non-literary friends as I do, is an exciting thing. Of course, this is a good way to have your books stolen. Or ruined. Or returned to you unread.
And isn’t there something comforting about books? One day, when I have a house, I dream of an entire room, lined wall-to-wall with books. I feel like I’d be happy in that room. Plus, it would be great insulation.
i’m a loaner, too. but sometimes that comes back to bite me in the ass. for example, my brother gave me one of the greatest book gifts of all time, letters to e.t., which i then loaned to a friend and never saw again.
I lug books around, too. They are a big reason I don’t want to move ever again. For the first time ever, I just gave several boxes worth to Goodwill. I couldn’t believe the titles I’d lugged across country. Most of my books I will never read again. I like them as objects for several reasons, I guess. No. 1, it’s my heritage. My mom’s homes were always lined with stuffed bookshelves. They’re, like, how people who can’t afford art decorate. They’re homey. No. 2, books have been the things I let myself buy, besides food, when I’ve been poor. They’re a luxury item. You want to keep your luxury items, right? No. 3, they’re pretty. I just like the objects themselves. I like designy stuff, and some books are really pretty. No. 4, I like it when people come to my house and look at my bookshelves as if they’re at the library and borrow books. It’s nice to … share … stuff.
Also, I like to tell myself maybe I’ll need one someday as a reference item. Also, did I mention they’re pretty?
I’m big on the reference item excuse. I like loaning too, but that rarely happens. I also have far too many I haven’t read yet. I like to review my shelf when I’m looking for my next book to read, and sometimes just going over the titles of these old books evokes the stories again and makes me happy. I think sometimes the biggest reason I hoard books is because I’m afraid I won’t remember them.
I’m doing a big book reshuffle right now, after performing the worst carpentry in the history of the world in putting up some shelves. but i keep trying to get rid of books — and I mean here the books that i will never, ever read — and then talking myself into keeping them.
I share many of the reasons already mentioned for hoarding — i like to be surrounded by these books, many of which are as important to me as all but the most important people in my life; i like being able to briefly revisit them, and enjoy just looking them over; vanity; and as some sort of personal flag. Look at what I read, everybody! It’s a sickness, really.
I have dug through them to find my favorite stories to teach in classes, though.
I buy lots of books, the vast majority of them used, and in the last three years, the vast majority of those off the clearance shelves of some of the really fantastic bookstores in Seattle. I can spend $15 at Half Price Books and walk out with a bag of books that is uncomfortably heavy to carry. I don’t buy books that I haven’t at least deluded myself about whether or not I will read. I may be impulsive, but I’m also practical.
I have five seven-foot long planks stacked atop each other, supported by fifteen cinder blocks for my mega-shelf. Then I have four other shelves that were either given to me or that I got for free on craigslist. They are all full. What I like about browsing someone else’s shelves is that their books tell me something about who they are. And likewise when someone enters my home for the first time, browsing my shelves are a quick way to probably obtain some useful information about me. Do I have more books than I could ever read? Not if I won the lottery tonight and could survive without ever having to work again. Or if I had an accident and became paralyzed. But outside of those two possibilities, it is very unlikely that I will be able to read every book I currently own, and it is even more unlikely that I won’t be buying more in the near future.
I love to buy second and third copies of books that I really love so that I can give them to people. I rarely loan books anymore – if I want you to read it, I will just give it to you. That way there is no serious obligation for you to read it, and none of the weirdness about when/if the book is returned. I’ve got more than my shelves or brain can handle, just take it.
At parties, I too make my way to the bookshelves, but instead of trying to figure out who the person is, their level of indoctrination, I’m motivated by the same kind of pettiness nine year old boy’s have when viewing another kid’s baseball card collection–got it, got it, need it, got it. Sometimes, late at night I drive past Barne’s & Noble and fantasize about shattering one of the windows with a cinder block for a shopping spree.
My girlfriend and I realized that we’re educated, up and coming yuppies who appreciate the arts because if we had three stores to loot in a riot, it would be: Chain Bookstore, Ikea, and a local gallery for art. Part of me died.
I like this riot idea Scott and I would be right behind you after you and W broke the windows with designer bricks. I think we’re okay as long as we keep buying our clothes from second hand stores.
will the real scott eubanks please stand up?! who is this i wonder… who’s behind all of this, this vast conspiracy against the one who called out yahweh on his deadbeat dad status… i dont know whether to be flattered or angry. how about both. angrily apathetic that i have somehow reached some real retards in eastern washington. enjoy your pranks, bitches.