The 'thing' about the 'book thing' I'm not fond of is the adoration of books as cult object. That there is a commeraderie or an assumed shared veneration of 'the book' is sophistic. I dig books, sure, but their hanging around my personal space--unread, un-looked at, unloved--is more decoration than intrinsic value.
There was this tv show in the 1970's where the host would make 'objet d'art' out of household objects. For one project, he had a 'false front' bookshelf (like a secret compartment) where he took a bunch of old books (probably Reader's Digest Condensed) and sawed them off at the spines, glued them together and, voilà!--a place to store your jiggers, high-ball glasses, and swizzle sticks. As a kid, I couldn't wait to grow up so I could take a band-saw to my mother's book-of-the-month selections and create my own mini-bar.
Reading books is something entirely different, of course. There is just about no greater joy than what happens between that printed page and my brain's cognitition. Bliss.
Library Thing
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
My post got eaten! Basically, I said something like I'd rather just read books than tag them. And I'm not sure I'd spend time and energy on sawing the spines off books I hated, even if I could make a hidey-hole for potent potables.
So many books, too little time...
Post a Comment