Limited shelfspace
I have a bad habit. (No, not that. And not that either. Perhaps that, but that’s a topic for another day.)
I love books. I love reading them, studying them, just plain looking at them. I sometimes even like judging books by their cover. Its fun! Notice how all business books have such a corporate feel to them. As if the information could not be serious enough. Then there are the medical books that look so neat and clean as if you may get sick if a sentence was laid out crookedly. Yes, person suffers severe trauma due to mistake in grammar. News at 9.
Anyway, my problem is that I always run out of shelf space. I try arranging them by importance or by popularity and fail in the attempt. Each at the time purchased or acquired was worth the time taken to read. They may not all be popular, but they sure are bedside reading for me. Where else can you find GG Marquez right next to Roald Dahl? (By the way, in this discussion we will not even begin to speak of my comic collection. Yes, COMIC COLLECTION. Graphic novel or not, they are comics. Darn it, I learned to read Filipino because of a rag called Funny Komiks so there!)
If we are reflected in the books on our shelves, what would I be seen as?
Stuck in the past perhaps? (Rubicon by Tom Holland, a study in the rise and fall of the Roman republic.)
The hopeless romantic? (Bridget Jones’s Diary by Helen Fielding, popular novel of female mis-adventures, made even more popular by movie of same title.)
Stuck in second childhood? (The BFG by Roald Dahl, strange tale of a young girl who finds out that giants are real. And they eat people. )
Guilty conscience? (Confessions of a Sinner by St Augustine, a dissertation of faith and moral conscience.)
Alcoholic. (The Sainsbury Book of Wine by C. Fielden, a book about… wine.)
Give me a month, a several more books will be added to the shelf. I will then struggle to find boxes to store a good number of them away, never to see the light of day until , as my father says, I end up with a library. But still I acquire.
Perhaps I have a disease. Or that I just love books. They smell brilliant. They are like old friends who wait patiently to be seen. What a nerd, eh? Such a liability, but perhaps a future investment.
Who am I kidding? I’m killing trees here! May be I should go into that e-books thing. But it just doesn’t feel the same. You can’t bring your PDA to the bathtub now can you?
