My Fascination With Books
Feb 24th, 2008 by Scott Hebert
What’s the deal with books?
Even if I’ll never read them, some books just have a peculiar hold on me. As part of her garage cleaning project, my wife just had me go through a huge pile of books and pick out the ones I can’t live without.
These books have been packed away in the garage for over a year now, so technically I’ve managed to live without them just fine. As I picked up each book, I could immediately tell whether I was going to keep it or not. There wasn’t really any rhyme or reason as to which books I kept, it was mainly how they made me feel.
A nice example is Tudor and Stuart Britain by Roger Lockyer. Unlike many of the books I kept, I’ve actually read this one. I don’t remember it being particularly great, but it feels really good in my hands. I’ve got the second edition and this particular book was printed in 1990. I bought it used for a college course. The cover is worn enough to be soft and it has a nice weight to it. This is is exactly the sort of book you just want to pick up and thumb through.
A project that would be completely boring for everyone but me would be to write about each book I chose to keep and why. The web definitely needs more boring!
Just a quick final note: the books in the garage are only part of a now shrinking collection. I still have several bookcases in the house and enough boxes to completely fill the underside of our king-sized bed.