Monday, April 05, 2004
So Many Books
Things have been kind of quiet on the book front lately. I finished So Many Books, So Little Time a few weeks ago, and never really wrote up my thoughts on it. Guess it's time for me to catch up.
The premise of the book is that it's the chronicle of a year in the life of a passionate reader. Sara Nelson set out at the beginning of 2002 to read a book a week and chronicle her thoughts on each one. And, pretty much, she does accomplish this. Her stated goal is to do more than just this, though; her desire was to observe the reading process and the ways books intersect with our lives. And those observations are exactly what I liked about this book. I really liked So Many Books, even though I realized that Nelson's and my own taste in books probably don't intersect too much. Nelson says, "If a particular book I mention makes you want to head off to the nearest bookstore, great; if not, maybe what I say about it will spark a memory or suggest a topic that seems honest or interesting or true" (7). And, it did. That's what I love about books and talking about books--the springboard effect. Books can bring up common experiences and ideas, and provide ways for us to connect with each other personally, as well as through discussion of the book itself. And you don't always have to have read a book to be able to have a conversation about it. (Or to write a paper about it. Heh heh.)
I enjoyed the way Nelson mentions various reading quirks that I often see in myself--like "double-booking," and the aversion to re-reading (when there is the guilt of so many unread books looming overhead). Also, the way we have "public books," you know...the ones that you're proud of reading, so you're more apt to let yourself be seen reading them. Unlike guilty pleasures like Good in Bed and Bridget Jones' Diary, both of which I read at home on the weekend.
So this leads me to a habit I noticed about myself while reading this book: I have to use a bookmark that matches the book I'm reading. Not only does the bookmark have to be the appropriate size and thickness (leather bookmarks just don't belong in paperbacks), but there cannot be a thematic disconnect between the book and bookmark. While reading So Many Books, I used a bookmark with a picture from the Old Library at Trinity College Dublin. When I read Good In Bed, I had to find a completely different bookmark. The stacks of books in the Old Library at Trinity just didn't fit between the covers of contemporary chick-lit. Current bookmarks: in The Princess Bride--one with hearts and "Be Mine" on it, a gift from a friend at Valentine's Day years and years ago. And in A.S. Byatt's The Biographer's Tale--one from Shakespeare's Globe in London, with a quote from Love's Labour's Lost.
Does anyone else match bookmarks with books, or am I just an anal freak? Maybe I shouldn't have asked that.
The premise of the book is that it's the chronicle of a year in the life of a passionate reader. Sara Nelson set out at the beginning of 2002 to read a book a week and chronicle her thoughts on each one. And, pretty much, she does accomplish this. Her stated goal is to do more than just this, though; her desire was to observe the reading process and the ways books intersect with our lives. And those observations are exactly what I liked about this book. I really liked So Many Books, even though I realized that Nelson's and my own taste in books probably don't intersect too much. Nelson says, "If a particular book I mention makes you want to head off to the nearest bookstore, great; if not, maybe what I say about it will spark a memory or suggest a topic that seems honest or interesting or true" (7). And, it did. That's what I love about books and talking about books--the springboard effect. Books can bring up common experiences and ideas, and provide ways for us to connect with each other personally, as well as through discussion of the book itself. And you don't always have to have read a book to be able to have a conversation about it. (Or to write a paper about it. Heh heh.)
I enjoyed the way Nelson mentions various reading quirks that I often see in myself--like "double-booking," and the aversion to re-reading (when there is the guilt of so many unread books looming overhead). Also, the way we have "public books," you know...the ones that you're proud of reading, so you're more apt to let yourself be seen reading them. Unlike guilty pleasures like Good in Bed and Bridget Jones' Diary, both of which I read at home on the weekend.
So this leads me to a habit I noticed about myself while reading this book: I have to use a bookmark that matches the book I'm reading. Not only does the bookmark have to be the appropriate size and thickness (leather bookmarks just don't belong in paperbacks), but there cannot be a thematic disconnect between the book and bookmark. While reading So Many Books, I used a bookmark with a picture from the Old Library at Trinity College Dublin. When I read Good In Bed, I had to find a completely different bookmark. The stacks of books in the Old Library at Trinity just didn't fit between the covers of contemporary chick-lit. Current bookmarks: in The Princess Bride--one with hearts and "Be Mine" on it, a gift from a friend at Valentine's Day years and years ago. And in A.S. Byatt's The Biographer's Tale--one from Shakespeare's Globe in London, with a quote from Love's Labour's Lost.
Does anyone else match bookmarks with books, or am I just an anal freak? Maybe I shouldn't have asked that.
| posted by Barbara | 3:08 AM