“I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library.”
Jorge Luis Borges
Several years ago while on a long plane ride, I finished one book and then reached into my bag and pulled out another. The passenger in the next seat asked if I would mind if he asked me a few questions about my reading habits. I said “OK,” and his questions went something like this:
Do you always carry a book with you?
Do you keep a surplus of books on hand that you are waiting to read?
When you go to someone else’s home, do you automatically browse through their books?
Do you have books in every room of your house?
How many books would you guess you own?
Do you read more than one book at a time?
Do you read a number of genres?
How often do you reread the same book?
Once you start a book, do you have to finish it?
Would you ever throw a book in the trash?
Do you go to bookstores and libraries just for fun?
And so it went for some time with my seatmate asking me questions to which he seemed to already know the answers. As it turned out, he was neither a psychic nor a bibliophile’s Peeping Tom; instead, he had worked in some type of research that evaluated attitudes, traits and habits of people who were “high, medium, and low” volume readers. (Guess which one I fell into?)
Over the years, some of my answers are the same as they were then. (Yes, I always have a surplus of books on hand, print and audio. I get twitchy if the supply gets too low). Some habits have changed. (I no longer feel the need to finish a book just because I start it. I’ll give it 100 pages, or if someone I trust has recommended it, I may restart it to see if I can engage.)
But, it’s the last two questions that probably shed the greatest light about my attitude toward books and reading.
Would you ever throw a book in the trash?
THROW AWAY A BOOK? That’s heresy! Unless a book is damaged beyond repair, I believe that there is someone, somewhere, who will appreciate it and who wants to read it.
I think that along with being a high-volume reader, the researcher said that I was probably not a pathological “hoarder,” since I am willing to give books away–just unwilling to throw one away–a thought that still makes me shudder. This leads me to a couple of recent great discoveries I made on ways to donate books.
Part book donation, part “message in a bottle,” Bookcrossing.com seems to be a novel way to recycle books that also involves a hint of intrigue. I am a novice to the system but am learning about “setting books free” into the wild and such. I’ll look forward to learning when and where my books travel to without me.
I love the concept of the Little Free Library, this grassroots international movement that unites reading, sharing and community through the philosophy “Take a book, Return a book.” These remind me of a doll-house equivalent of a public library―small building but a big idea.
And of course, used bookstores and libraries are other great places to donate books.
Do you go to bookstores and libraries just for fun?
Just browsing and knowing that all those books exist makes me smile and helps me breathe a little lighter. Or as Mark Twain noted, “In a good bookroom you feel in some mysterious way that you are absorbing the wisdom contained in all the books through your skin, without even opening them.”
National Library Week begins on April 13. We can thank Benjamin Franklin for his foresight in founding these free bastions of knowledge as we join together to celebrate libraries.
Last year, an eloquent and powerful op-ed guest column, “In praise of those life-saving libraries,” was published in The New Jersey Star-Ledger. I’ve included an excerpt here but the column, written by Professor Brian Regal of Kean University, is worth reading in its entirety:
“A community that gives up on its libraries has given up on its prosperity. It has written off all but its wealthiest citizens and made knowledge acquisition — one of the bedrocks of a free society — seem a pointless exercise…
…I learned an important lesson sitting on the floor of the library: Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for I have books with me.”
Amen to that!
from “The Art of Graeme Base“