The Sacredness of Books · Monday September 17, 2007 by Julie
Now and then I burn a book. Maybe it’s my German roots, I don’t know.
I might burn one if any of the following apply: 1. It is moldy, 2. It is so badly written that the course of civilization would go markedly better without it (Readers’ Digest selections from the ‘60’s spring to mind), 3. It is a science textbook that was published between the ‘40’s and the 80’s and I have a replacement, or 4. Other considerations that have little to do with the standard definition of “offensive” and more to do with my personal standards of taste, accuracy (though I do have a copy of The Hollow Earth on my shelves), and usefulness.
If it’s really good it often stays on my shelves or gets loaned out. If it’s okay, I leave it at the book exchange at the Post Office or take it to the used book store or Goodwill.
I’ve never fully understood the bumper sticker that some of my teacher colleagues have on their cars, READ A BOOK. I do read a lot of books, but I really do not think that reading any old book is always the best use of your time.
When I was little, I read compulsively, and in some ways I still do. I think that brains need a bit of time to relax, and reading for entertainment is a pleasant way to do that. It’s something to distract the monkey-mind while deeper things are happening. There’s also reading for information, of course, but I tend to think of that as studying, not reading. I think that brains also need time to free-wheel, and that reading is an unwholesome distraction from that when that’s what’s needed. And finally, we need time to focus on creativity, where instead of absorbing someone else’s ideas we generate our own.
I tend to read five or six books at a time, mainly because I forget where I’ve put the other ones. There are the ones that I feel okay about propping up near the sink while I do dishes, and ones I read comfortably in bed. I save the crunchiest ones for those moments of dead time that keep coming up while you’re waiting for something else to happen. Here’s the current list, except for that one book I was reading but can’t figure out where I put it:
Barbara Ehrenreich’s Nickel and Dimed: Is there a way out of poverty? Apparantly not if you’re working for minimum wage.
Terry Pratchett’s Going Postal. I’m reading it because Making Money will also have Moist von Lipwig, one of Pratchett’s most well-realized characters yet (though I do have a teensy crush on Vetinari).
Bernd Heinrich’s Why We Run. This was a serendipitous find. I was looking for books on beach zonation at the used book store and this one fell off the shelf. He also wrote Mind of a Raven, also good. Why is a cool mix of memoir and physiology.
Augusten Burroughs, Magical Thinking. He is caustically funny. This is one of the few books on our shelves that I’ve warned The Spink away from – definitely adult, more for its bitchiness than its blow jobs. But I keep snorting with laughter.
Bill Bryson, A Short History of Nearly Everything. We are doing this as a read-aloud instead of what we ought to be doing, which is High School Biology. Bryson is brilliant at making time and distance understandable.
