Your question is right:
How can be books unnecessary?
They are sitting on the shelf for a reason, they will be read or have been read. Books can't be unnecessary, you need them...at least for some reason. If you don't have books in your home how will your visitors judge you?
Look at this dumb-dumb, he doesn't even has a bookshelf in his house!
Or as I've imagined.
But intelligence and the fact that you are clever, well-read, or at least that you are not illiterate, doesn't come from the books you have on your shelves. You won't be an art scientist because you have a coffee table book collection from every decent painter in the last 500 years.
People will know if you are any of these things, if they start to know YOU.
Just last December I couldn't even imagine how it could work to read borrowed and library lent books. I asked for books that Christmas, eventhough my fiancée pointed out that we have many libraries in the city which ones have those particular books.
I don't have to tell you: I heard her sentences, but I didn't want to listen. I always bought books, that was the normal way of getting books. You buy them, read them, place them on a shelf.
Or buy them place them on a shelf, long to read them, then never do it and sell them...
Another wake up call.
Many-many years I bought books, just because the sheer fact I wanted them to be around me, some of them was kept because the story was great and there were a chance to read them again, some of them was read, but the story wasn't good enough for a second read. And some of them looked nice on the shelf, and I never had the intention to read them, but I thought: How intelligent I would look with these ponderous tomes on my shelves.
In the first three entries I've mentioned these kinds of collections. Those collection were there just because they looked nice and told stories about how interesting the person who has them.
And how does The Terror, a fictionalised novel, by Dan Simons come in the picture?
I wont tell spoilers, I promise.
Someplace in the story, one of the main characters: the Irish Captain Francis Rawdon Moira Crozier thinks about how many unnecessary things they've had brought with themselves to the arctic.
He thinks about many different stuff from cut glass to expensive china, but the main object which started the thought in his head, are: books.
If you read about the Franklin expedition and it's real fate, every historian will tell you, that the tragedy happened because when the whole crew abandoned the ships, they brought with themselves many-many unnecessary things, including books, which were heavy. That meant they had to pull extra weight on the ice, which made them get tired way faster, and slowed them down aswel.
It's great to have books, but they were made for reading, for learning, gaining knowledge, for having fun.
What kind of fun and knowledge can give you a book which won't be read again? Which won't be read ever? Both kind are only taking up space, and keeping them dustless will take up your time.
To correctly undust a book you have to take them off the shelf, get them out on the open air, wipe them, turn their pages over and over, close and open them up, to get out the dust from between the pages, because it gets there.
Half a year ago my fiancée said, that next time we declutter our bookshelves (back then I said that that's it I can't let go more book, you can imagine that this sentence haven't left my mouth for the first time, and as you read this, you know that it wasn't even the last!) we can keep only so many books which we are able and willful to properly undust every half a year!
And here I am.
Last time I wrote, there was that wonderful black steamertrunk, and an epic fail for me.
As I am writing these lines I already purchased one (about that in another entry!) and I am thinking again and again about how many of my books will survive the purge, and which ones will be those?
This year I read three or four books which was borrowed, and after I finished them I didn't feel that longing for the book, I didn't feel the emptiness what I awaited after I gave back the book, and I couldn't keep it. It was fine. The book was used, as it was intended. I wasn't less just because I couldn't look at it every day after I've read it. I knew the story, if I was to read it again, I can get it again, from a friend or the library.
I think the secret in letting go was learning, that it won't make me a different person if I don't have them around, it won't degrade my personality if I ain't surrounded with ALL OF my favourite books.
How can be books unnecessary?
They are sitting on the shelf for a reason, they will be read or have been read. Books can't be unnecessary, you need them...at least for some reason. If you don't have books in your home how will your visitors judge you?
Look at this dumb-dumb, he doesn't even has a bookshelf in his house!
Or as I've imagined.
But intelligence and the fact that you are clever, well-read, or at least that you are not illiterate, doesn't come from the books you have on your shelves. You won't be an art scientist because you have a coffee table book collection from every decent painter in the last 500 years.
People will know if you are any of these things, if they start to know YOU.
 |
| Top section of my bookshelf from three or four years ago. Most of these books have been sold or donated, most of them haven't even been read, I mean ever. On the lower shelf you can see I had to make towers from some of them, because they couldn't fit elseways. Note: the brick-a-brack lying on top of the books. |
Just last December I couldn't even imagine how it could work to read borrowed and library lent books. I asked for books that Christmas, eventhough my fiancée pointed out that we have many libraries in the city which ones have those particular books.
I don't have to tell you: I heard her sentences, but I didn't want to listen. I always bought books, that was the normal way of getting books. You buy them, read them, place them on a shelf.
Or buy them place them on a shelf, long to read them, then never do it and sell them...
Another wake up call.
Many-many years I bought books, just because the sheer fact I wanted them to be around me, some of them was kept because the story was great and there were a chance to read them again, some of them was read, but the story wasn't good enough for a second read. And some of them looked nice on the shelf, and I never had the intention to read them, but I thought: How intelligent I would look with these ponderous tomes on my shelves.
In the first three entries I've mentioned these kinds of collections. Those collection were there just because they looked nice and told stories about how interesting the person who has them.
And how does The Terror, a fictionalised novel, by Dan Simons come in the picture?
I wont tell spoilers, I promise.
Someplace in the story, one of the main characters: the Irish Captain Francis Rawdon Moira Crozier thinks about how many unnecessary things they've had brought with themselves to the arctic.
He thinks about many different stuff from cut glass to expensive china, but the main object which started the thought in his head, are: books.
If you read about the Franklin expedition and it's real fate, every historian will tell you, that the tragedy happened because when the whole crew abandoned the ships, they brought with themselves many-many unnecessary things, including books, which were heavy. That meant they had to pull extra weight on the ice, which made them get tired way faster, and slowed them down aswel.
It's great to have books, but they were made for reading, for learning, gaining knowledge, for having fun.
 |
| The bookshelf's last state, before the renovation, for which we had to disassemble it, and put everything away. The fact itself that the books only take up four shelves' space a record in itself. Note: the books signed with the pink post it are the ones which will be sold or donated. |
To correctly undust a book you have to take them off the shelf, get them out on the open air, wipe them, turn their pages over and over, close and open them up, to get out the dust from between the pages, because it gets there.
Half a year ago my fiancée said, that next time we declutter our bookshelves (back then I said that that's it I can't let go more book, you can imagine that this sentence haven't left my mouth for the first time, and as you read this, you know that it wasn't even the last!) we can keep only so many books which we are able and willful to properly undust every half a year!
And here I am.
Last time I wrote, there was that wonderful black steamertrunk, and an epic fail for me.
As I am writing these lines I already purchased one (about that in another entry!) and I am thinking again and again about how many of my books will survive the purge, and which ones will be those?
This year I read three or four books which was borrowed, and after I finished them I didn't feel that longing for the book, I didn't feel the emptiness what I awaited after I gave back the book, and I couldn't keep it. It was fine. The book was used, as it was intended. I wasn't less just because I couldn't look at it every day after I've read it. I knew the story, if I was to read it again, I can get it again, from a friend or the library.
I think the secret in letting go was learning, that it won't make me a different person if I don't have them around, it won't degrade my personality if I ain't surrounded with ALL OF my favourite books.
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