Books and things.

I'm not a collector of many things.  My mom is a collector.  She has, at different times in her life, decided to collect things.  Baskets, pitchers, dolls, dogs, knick-knacks, pocelain bears. You name it, she collects it.  As a result, I am not a knick-nack person.  You will find almost no knick-knack anywhere in my house.  People who buy me cutsey little collectible stuff or little signs with painted quotations and polka-dots... well, they should know that after a perfunctory display period, their gift is relegated to the box-o-guilt in the attic(only for gifts from people I deem most special and therefore cannot seperate from said knickety-knackety thing) or, most likely, on the next truck to St. Paul- St. Vincent de Paul that is.

There are two things I have amassed in my time- books and photos.  I have a crapload of photography equipment from when I worked as a photographer full-time but I never *collected* stuff- as in, I do not have 4 Rolleis that don't actually work.  Every piece of equipment serves an individual and necessary purpose in the photographic process.  So, having clarified that I am not a collector, I have to say, if you are going to collect something- maybe baskets are a good idea since they are a hell of a lot lighter than books.

The other day I looked at Dean and said, "I am going to get rid of all my books and buy a Kindle".  Dean looked at me, alarmed. "What are you going to do with all these books?" I can see him visibly calculating the tens of thousands of dollars of hardcover books in our house(I only buy hardbacks and I have *thousands*).  I then see him consider the additional expense of the Kindle and loading it up with enough material to keep me happy forever. 

Of course, it will never happen.  If I got rid of my books, I'd just buy new ones I suppose.  When I was a kid, my parents wholeheartedly supported my reading addiction but my habit was enormous so they couldn't even keep up.  One Christmas they bought me a hundred dollars worth of books and I read through those like they were magazines.  At one point I was raiding my mom's coat pockets and searching the couch cushions, hoarding lunch money and bumming food off friends so I could go to the bookstore across the street from my bus stop and buy a book after school every day.  That's right, I was stealing from my mom's coat pockets to buy books. *gasp*  I even spent my bus money sometimes- then I would cut out pieces of yellow paper and try to make like it was a bus ticket.  One time the bus driver yelled at me and told me I was "going to have to pay the piper" if I was going to ride te bus.  I had to get sneakier after that and I started paying in small coins so e couldn't tell how much I put it.  That was after spending my weekly allowance and any birthday or holiday money, babysitting money (when I was a bit older) or extra chore money on books.  It was never enough.  I could not read enough books to escape my life.  When I was 6, 7, 8 and 9 I was having nightmares every night and reading myself to sleep on my closet floor(I had a walk-in closet with a light) because I was scared to fall asleep and have the nightmares... books were always my escape.  Books were a good and comforting thing.  Some people had parents that loved them and kept them safe, I had books.

Anyhow, when I got out of college and finally had the space to hoard books and the money to buy 'real' books, oh, it felt so luxurious and decadent.  If I wanted a book, I could have it.  In some part of my mind, that is when I became adequately successful.  Because really, no matter how rough life gets, as long as I have books, I can get through it. Or, uh, at least escape from it. 

There is just something about a book, though- holding in your hands, the font on the pages.  I love old books and have dozens of beautiful cloth-bound editions of classics.  I about died with happiness when I found a set of Thomas Hardy books in the most beautiful binding at Mel's in Berkeley. Ahhhh.  Nothing like a beautiful, purple cloth bound copy of Jude the Obscure printed on thick, creamy white paper. Yum.

Oh, I guess I do collect one other thing... lingerie. Heh.  But, that is a whole other post. 

Comments

[Joolie]

I enjoy the act of reading much more than the books themselves--I'm not much of a collector either--but there's something about flipping through a book to find the passage you want that I just don't think would work with scrolling. And lending and borrowing books makes me happy, plus I've read that obtaining information from print on a page makes it stick in a way that pixels on a screen just don't.

Oh, and cover art! And scattering them strategically through the house so I can pick them up and browse on my way to doing something else. And they look so nice and colorful when they're ordered on a shelf. And so on.

I wouldn't mind having a Kindle, but I think--I hope--there will always be room for the paper-based written word.

[melissa]

I also like to underline and highlight and go back and re read said passage. I don't know how that works on a kindle. I'm an avid reader with piles of books by my bed, on the floor, the shelves, the organizing crate that was quickly too small for all the new books. Books were both friends and escape for me also as a kid, but more than that, they let me into another mind/perspective/point of view and reflected feelings I had no words for back to me to ponder. I am a major bookaholic. Beams :) Melissa