Today I joined myself and my children to the library. I have no idea why I hadn't done this long since, but I hadn't, and today I did. I love libraries, full of books and quietness. And I can now take up to 45 books out at any one time. The possibilities make me tingle with anticipation of all the books I can order online! How good is that? Like Amazon,but free!! They didn't do that when I last was a member of a library. Which was at least 6 years ago, fool that I am.
I didn't take any books for myself out though, just some for the kids. Why? Because I have 40 odd books on my bookshelves that I own, some gifts, most bought by me. Books that I want to read. That I have read some of and given up on. That are by some of my most favourite authors. Two I don't yet own, by Ben Goldacre and Ian Stewart, but they're in the post and so will be read, probably first.
I didn't take any books for myself out though, just some for the kids. Why? Because I have 40 odd books on my bookshelves that I own, some gifts, most bought by me. Books that I want to read. That I have read some of and given up on. That are by some of my most favourite authors. Two I don't yet own, by Ben Goldacre and Ian Stewart, but they're in the post and so will be read, probably first.
Now, an exercise in humility: I have posted this list on this blog. Right below the latest post. There, look, down there. Fascinating stuff, huh? It's a mix of stuff that I haven't read yet, some I have started and not got into but not disliked, some I haven't opened, some I loved and just got distracted. Jasper Fforde's in there! Three of them!!!!!!!! Don't ask me why. Derron Brown, Mark Watson, John Humphrys, Val McDermid - all brilliant. Andrew Collins? No, I don't understand THAT one at all. There's nothing I dislike, I purged myself of all of those in one of my many book sorteries of the last year. They are in the order I saw them in, which is no order whatsoever, other than putting an author's work together.
The reason for posting this is not that I expect anyone to have any interest, but because I feel that by putting it on the public domain I may feel compelled to try and dent the list rather than just ploughing through the entire chart section of the supermarkets endlessly while making the list longer. Although some of the list is chart stuff, I'm not in the least bit elitist about what I give up on.
The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them.
Mark Twain
2 comments:
I can order (virtually) any book or dvd through my library. and they deliver it to my local library (which is closing for a year to be whizz-banged - so they'll be delivering it to a van at Asda's car park). So my feeling is - why would i ever want to own anything? If I could rent my trousers, take them back and get a different pair next week, I would. Except I suppose, someone horrid might have been wearing them. But it would be fun and cost less. The library scheme should be used with cars as well. Councils should rent them out. Oh, and houses. Sorry, that's going too far.
Libraries are for commmunists.
It would be a great idea for most things. Except...
1) I like owning things.
2) I am really really bad about returning things. I pay a small fortune in fines and have a book/LP/video belonging to every library I've ever joined. And some I didn't. It's not intentional thievery, it just happens.
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