I don’t mean a public library. I mean a room in my house with shelves and books and a good reading light and a place to rest my bourbon.
Friends of mine have a library. I know it’s possible.
Laura Miller (who is the subject of this Jacket Copy post) wrote about culling her book collection in Sunday’s New York Times. She knows a couple who’ve gotten rid of most of their books; agent Ira Silverberg, who purges the books by the people he’s stopped talking to; and Jonathan Franzen, who once kept a strict read-to-unread ratio. Miller’s collection is more aspirational (may unread books, including a Dickens tome), but she tries to keep a one-book-in, one-book-out policy.
But the real issue isn’t how many books you have. It’s about how much space you have, factored against how often you have to pick up all your books and move them.
If I had a big rambling house like my grandmother did, I’d never get rid of any books. OK, some of the books that end up in my possession are throw-awayable, like one Tod Goldberg had to let go, but I would not be forced to triage books I actually want. I do not, like my grandmother, live in a big rambling house with a library — it also had a paleolithic-era TV that I think had ceased to function — I live in a small LA apartment that I will probably leave when my lease is up.
In my current space, my library is everywhere — narrow halls, living room, bedroom. I keep the unread books on a short bookshelf that actually needs to be taller. No matter how hard I try, stacks of books, usually in mid-read, form on horizontal surfaces like stalagmites.
In Pittsburgh I had a ridiculous amount of space, three stories of a skinny row house (plus basement), and I used the attic as a library. But the attic wasn’t insulated, so most of the year I only made forays up there, teeth chattering, to retrieve books as needed. I picked up bookshelves for other rooms and the library expanded. I had a newly-received branch (shelf) inside the front door; a grad-school project branch in the dining room.
Probably, no matter where I end up next — hauling boxes and boxes and many many many more boxes of books — they’ll still live everywhere. Library or not.
But I still want a library.
Letting go of books is all good and well in concept, but when you get down to the individual book it seems like that very one you’re getting ready to toss suddenly has so much potential…
But, even with more space now that we’re out of apartment and into house, the books aren’t playing nice (but I do have a whole separate shelf for my ever-growing tbr pile now)
Last night was my company’s holiday party, which took place in the former law library of a big firm that relocated to another building. The room retained the library’s shelves and even all of the law books, and as I stood there imagining the possibility of a secret passageway behind one of the shelves (like libraries in mansions in movies and books always seem to have), it occurred to me that if I ever had my own library room the design would definitely have to include just such a passageway – even it it lead nowhere. If you ever get the library you wish for, I strongly suggest that you consider just such a feature.