I have spent the last three
months closing down a shop that bought and sold 'slightly used
books'. Some of you may have been customers or perhaps just casual
visitors; waiting for kebabs, looking at houses and walking in - 'just browsing
thanks'!
At the same time I was
directing Going West Books and Writers Festival at the War Memorial Hall and
presenting the work of about 32 authors to my audience. Of course, as I had the
wonderful Unity Books on site, I was encouraging the audience to buy the books
that were at the heart of the conversations I presented. I was stuck in the
middle. On one hand trying to get rid of books; the other encouraging the
purchasing of new books.
I learnt that some people will
never have enough space to keep all their books. Rather than reduce the size of
their collection they will squeeze in another bookcase. The thought of
disposing of old books is an anathema, a failure of moral rigour. To me the
reduction of my own stock from about 3000 books to around 300 was a miserable
exercise confirming, as I suspected, the value of books has slumped in the last
5 years to the extent that I was effectively giving them away.
So! How does buying a book or
two become an addiction.You may start off collecting a few titles by one
author; writing that has the ability to offer an 'intimate immersion' as
simple, elegant story telling always must. That sense of special emotional
response from something a simple as a book is a rare charm among the
sophistication of screen sourced text.
But at this stage you can see
the incipient 'completist' emerging like a bloom. 'If I have all the
Aubury/Maturin novels by Patrick O'Brian then what about the rest of his
fiction.' This is when book cases become an issue because you now have all
these neat paperback novels, but you like the hardback editions and you
need to house them too as well as texts from uni or poly that you may
need for future study. Yeah. Right!
To move from completist to
collector is a big step; moving from a bookcase to several - pause and you have
a library, you're buying at auction or scouring garage sales (no used bookshops
out here) and you are a collector. This can be very cool but the pay is not
great. Insuring your library is another sign of collectivism.
From here on the emotional
plane tilts a little. The nature of ownership is one that encourages an
assumption of possession; the shift from 'intimate immersion' to one of
'immersing intimacy'. This is where that hint of obsession may poke its fin
above the waves. Other media are involved: audio books, DVD's, film and record
may all round out the experience. Fictional autobiographies make links to an
imagined reality. You may now live a world of imagined lives based on the word.
Having insured your books you
have now monetised them, made up databases and become something of an authority
on whatever. Buying and selling on the internet is so easy. Your library
aquires more than sells. Your role is now one of saving and you become an
archivist, assuming responsibility for keeping the database online and making a
succession plan for the eventual transfer of the stuff of books. This is where
it comes close to the bone.
For many people discarding
books has the air of sacrilege. As I emptied my old shop I was resigned to
having to dump books at the recycle station. The ideas remain, the text is
always available in a library or online. To keep books just in case they may be
needed is a prevarication that can only lead to depression. In the end I
accepted that much of my stock was unsaleble and even ungivable. The archivers
would have been not only depressed but mortified by my dimissive attitude to
the text I discarded.
My community is well represented
by that generation who inherited their parents books from the 30', 40's &c.
These were the people who felt that books could help overcome any deficiencies
of birth or education. They were right and so were the children of that
generation growing up in the 50's, and 60's. Used bookshops are flooded with
these books; once essential reading for any family but now a bit like old
newspapers in that they are repurposed within a sustainable economy. And then
there was the set of encyclopaedias and Readers Digest condensed books!
I am so glad to see e-books
taking over mass market publishing – several million less paperbacks to be
pulped every month. Only a few electrons will be disturbed by their electronic
pulping and maybe online content providers will save you trouble and just
withdraw your text and let you know by texting.
I have now retired and will
concentrate on reducing 300 titles to 100 – all able to fit in half a dozen
boxes. Then I will start buying more books; just in case I might need them. You
never know if the libraries will be disestablished as a common good, when the
whole webby net thing may be hacked to death or the power may fail for a week
or two.
Murray Gray. gonewestbooks.com
Programme Director. Going West Books & Writers
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