I enjoy reading books about reading and books. I’m not completely sure why, but I always find it worthwhile when I spend time reading about books and reading. I read once about a man who told how he logged and registered every book he obtained – whether he purchased it, or was given it as a gift or whatever – as soon as he got the book home. It was an elaborate process, especially if he had several books. I found it interesting and very much like I used to do. I don’t do that anymore. I’m not sure why. It might have to do that I once lost my library file and its backup and the thought to start over was just too much for me to ponder.
I read another small book about books and reading and libraries by Anne Fadiman. It was called, appropriately, “Ex Libris”. I actually have read it twice. It begins with a charming article about merging her library with her husband’s “after living together for six years and married for five”, as she says. The short chapter is entertaining and makes one wish that they could write so well (at least it does for me whenever I reread any of the others). I just pulled it down from the bookshelf and will begin to read it again this evening.
I have read books about book thieves and persons who have stolen old maps from books by cutting them out of the books in libraries! I have read about famous people’s libraries and what they look like. Whenever I read a novel and books play an important part either in the plot, or maybe just the setting, the writer takes a good deal of time to describe what the library looks like, and where the person would read the book, to the point where I can imagine myself sitting there, by the fire, with my whisky and my dog lying next to me on a cold winter’s evening… Oops, got carried away. Sorry.
Anyhow, on that note, I am going downstairs to sit with a whisky and my “Ex Libris”. More about this topic again… Slainte!
(Ebrima 12 font)
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