Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Evidence of a pathology?


{Photos by rocketlass.}

That's what our second bedroom looked like last week while we waited for our new bookcases to arrive. Fortunately, we had no guests at the time.



Now they're here, and it's remarkable how much more ordered life seems, A leading unwaveringly to Zed. And (is this a bad thing?) it's amazing how much more room we have to put new books!



As Luc Sante noted in his Wall Street Journal article about his library a couple of months ago, people--usually non-readers--are always asking, "Have you really read all those books?"

To which the most honest response is, "Of course not: this is my to-do list."

3 comments:

  1. I am green with envy: all books shelved, upright, and space for new ones! Be still my heart.

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  2. I agree. Is there anything more beautiful than empty bookcases.

    One of the many (many) terrible things about selling our house last year was that our realtor told us to pack up as many books as possible. People, she said, just don't want to see full bookshelves. And it's true that when you go to visit open houses, very rarely to you see groaning stacks of books. I have a colleague who is making a second career about pontificating about the decline in reading, but it all seems to add up to this: kids don't see their parents read anymore, and so they don't. No overstuffed bookshelves, no readers.

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  3. So, just to be clear, you all agree that the best thing to have is empty space on bookshelves?

    ReplyDelete