Thursday, January 7, 2010

The unreadables

In keeping with my previous post about which books I cleared out for the new year, here’s a post hoc rationale from ABE Books, where I alternate my book-buying dollars when not direct-depositing to Amazon. The reasons are interesting to me.

Number 1 is tied to number 5; “classics” are pretty much automatic “shoulds”. And frequently with number 4. Enormous isn’t automatically a show-stopper for me, although combining “enormous” with “novel” turns me off. I have no problem whatsoever with ponderous tomes of history or biography—although the current trend of having end notes instead of footnotes drives me nuts.

I've been told I'm the only person in the history of the world to take a thick history hardback to read on the beach in Saint Martin. Not sure about that, but my idea of an airplane read is more Dante than Dan Brown.

Number 3 isn’t too much of an influencer for me. I do get interested in a book after reading a review in the WSJ, Washington Post or LA Times, but lately I’ve taken to seeing if the library has them and going that route. I will admit that I have returned several I pursued in the past year without finishing them, so that was definitely beneficial to my budget and shelf space.

Number 6—okay, so my stack has kind of imitated Topsy. I’ve got about nine waiting now, including Joe Queenan’s memoir about life with his abusive father. I know it’ll be well written; I just have to steel myself to get into it. Right now I’m delving into La Bella Lingua, with The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society—both Christmas gifts. The former is, as you would deduce, about Italian; the latter an epistolary novel. Then there’s Leslie Caron’s memoir and The Blackout Book…well, you get the drift

I just have to keep away from the book review pages and work assiduously on my stack.

Numbers 7 and 10 aren’t applicable; I don’t spend a whole lot of time in actual shops any more (except on Charing Cross Road in London), nor do I know anyone who works in one.

Also, since I’m not in class or a reading club, I don’t have to worry about number 9.

As for number 8, well—while knowing someone’s a good writer helps filter the purchase, it’s the subject matter that usually entices.

And since most of these reasons are clearly geared to fiction, they’re all a big N/A, since I find a lot of the stuff annoying and the ones I do like (detective stories) I usually get from the library.

I will say that when I was clearing out last week the biggest pile of discards were novels. probably 80% were “never going to read again”; the rest were “oh, pooh—life’s to short to even think about this one.”

It’s quite liberating, actually.


Monday, January 4, 2010

God help us

Ah, Jesus, Mary and Joseph—a new blasphemy law has gone into effect this week in Ireland. If reports of its provisions are accurate it’s hard to find anything more open to challenges, litigation and outrage than this crack-brained thing.

It seems “anything abusive” to any religion can put you in line for hefty fines. That covers a lot of territory. Just think: the usual Muslims affronted by pretty much everything, fundamentalist Christians waxing wrath over anything that doesn’t conform to the sections of the Bible they endorse, Druids rising up over anti-tree remarks, Haredim pissed off at anyone working on the Sabbath, and me—I think anyone who even mentions the concept of animal sacrifice should be removed from the gene pool immediately; forget any poxy fine.

How on earth is anyone not going to be fined $35K for something with a law like that? Libraries have got to be in for torching—even in that most Catholic of countries. (Sean O’Casey and Brendan Behan alone are on the hit list. And forget James Joyce.) For certain sure, no stand-up comic is going to survive the first five minutes of a gig.

Thank God for the atheists—specifically, the Atheist Ireland group. They’ve published a New Year’s starter list of blasphemous quotations to get everyone’s bile flowing. The vast preponderance of their quotes are Christian focused; probably had to draw the line at some number people would actually, you know, read.

We’ll have to see how this plays out. I’d like to keep track of how many people are charged under the law, but I don’t think anyone has that much time available to waste.

Except apparently the Irish government.

Can I call them putzes without risking a year’s worth of mortgage payments? What if I call them religiously-stunted putzes?

Sunday, January 3, 2010

New year clear-out

It being the new year and all (new decade, as the media would have us believe), I decided it was time to do a bit of a clean-out.

I’ve been culling clothes I haven’t worn for years, as well as ones that I can’t hold up without suspenders. We’re talking several mid-sized moving cartons of those.

There’s also a lot of linens and kitchenware. Again—stuff I haven’t used since long before I moved West.

But also books. Went through the collection & culled about 200-250. While 250 is about 5% of the whole, it did open space for any volumes I find I can't live without in 2010.

The fiction was the easiest; a lot of stuff I’m not going to either read or reread—The Raj Quartet, Conrad, Tolstoy, Miller’s Tropics, Twain, even Joe Wambaugh. To tell you the truth, it doesn't really hurt to let go of fiction; it represents less than 25% of my collection anyhow.

Also, I took a machete to my detective fiction, which is a bit of a first. Cleared out PD James, Reginald Hill, Elizabeth George and some others. Kept Allingham, Christie, Marsh, Crispin, Sayers, Tey and Hillerman. Those I can read again.

A bunch of business and technology went too, including my C programming texts. Does anyone even use C anymore?

I culled all the museum art books I got for being a member of the Smithsonian; but kept all the photography, fashion, architecture and arts books.

Several cookery books went, although I couldn’t part with Julia Child, the Great Meals in Minutes series (even the “minutes” is a gross underestimate of the actual time required) or the books from World War II.

In fact, the one category I couldn’t touch was history—four bookcases of those, and every one absolutely necessary. A girl’s gotta know her limitations.

If you’re thinking about thinning your collection, here are some suggestions from those with strong connections to books. I read them after I was done updating my inventory, but they may prove helpful to you.

Now my problem is finding a charity here that will actually come out to collect donations instead of expecting you to deliver to them.