Tag: Books

The Great Unread

I tried to read you. Couldn’t get through you. Did I even get past Chapter One?

For some reason we never hit it off, did we ‘Dune’?

It all began when someone I admired said they’d read you.

It was Holly Johnson from Frankie Goes to Hollywood. It was an answer to a question in one of those pop music magazine bio’s. There were questions like ‘What’s your favourite colour? What book are you reading at the moment?’ This would have been in the mid eighties.

So, I did the natural thing, I went out, saved my pocket money and blew a few weeks worth on Dune by Frank Herbert.

Anyway, couldn’t get through Dune, gave it away in the end. My motivations for having the book were all wrong. I just wanted it because Holly had read it. How shallow. How silly. How embarressing but looking back, in my defense, I was fourteen and smitten.

The same thing happened when I was about eighteen with ‘The Ragged Trousered Philanphropists’ by Robert Tressell. About five different people recommended it to me, including my dad. So I bought it and couldn’t get past Chapter One.

I discovered that a couple of other people I knew had tried reading ‘Dune’ but couldn’t get through it, and they were hard core fantasy/sci fi fans. So then, I didn’t feel quite so bad. Interestingly enough, some of those people were able to get through it easily enough on audiobook.

I’m not an audiobook type of person but I might just buy ‘Dune’ again and this time just buckle down and also read ‘The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists’ because I’m no longer a teenager, a lot of water has gone under the bridge and I’m not idolizing pop groups anymore.

When I start a book, I like to follow it through to the end, the ‘I’ve started so I’ll finish’ mentality but sometimes, just sometimes in life, there remains the great unread.

The Joy of Bookmarks

I’m not talking about the kind you buy to put in a book to mark your place, I’m mostly talking about incidental bookmarks, the ones you grab to mark your place and often, these can be found in second hand books. You can find many things in second hand books, not just the authors work. I have found receipts posing as bookmarks, usually from the bookshop the book was bought from, sometimes train and bus tickets, shopping lists and even little notes, memos etc.

Then there’s this. It was just a piece of paper within the pages of a second hand book, which I believe was being used as a bookmark. It’s one of my favourites.

I have also found family photos and holiday postcards saying ‘the food is okay, but can’t wait to get back for some fish and chips, it just rained four days straight, but the night life and tequilas are great. Wish you were here!’
I usually leave those things in books. It’s as if those makeshift bookmarks belong there, the same goes for photos, notes and postcards, as long as they’re not incriminating of course, or have I.D info on them. I will remove and destroy pieces of paper and ‘incidental bookmarks’ that have too much info on them, like someone’s address for example.
Some ‘bookmarks’ are meant to stay within the book. You found them in the book so you keep them in the book. Sometimes they belong there. It’s nice just to pass it along to the next owner of the book. It’s a piece of the past that
connects the previous owners and readers of the book to the next and to the moment in time it’s being read. Bookmarks and incidental bookmarks can add to that whole wonder of second hand books.

The Joy of Books (Part Two)

The feel of books

Hard back or soft back?

Both please, depending on mood and accessibility.

The hardback is in it for the long haul

Something to hold onto

When all the world is falling apart

When we are falling apart

The hardback can be gripped more fiercely

than any paperback

Without it withering or bending

under the stress of our fingers

to give us the sense that

the world

or ourselves

are not spinning wildly

out

of

control

Hold onto that hardback

For as its name suggests

It is hard

It is a back

And when someone says

they have got your back

It’s good.

Ever read a book with a traumatised spine?

Once a spine goes in a book

it really doesn’t take too long for it to fall apart

a bit like people

Paperbacks bend well

Sometimes circling in on themselves

like a willow in the wind

I love a good bendy paperback

a contortionist of a paperback

Unyeilding paperbacks have their place

but give me a double jointed paperback any day.

Well used paperbacks that have been through the mill

worn and tired and weary

still have the same amount of reading in them

perhaps more so

because of what they’ve been through

You can feel their years on the earth

the emotions that have passed through them

from all those hungry eyes and minds and hearts

fingers clutching or gripping the cover

or gently holding or caressing

Books are inanimate objects

But they were my friends growing up

still are

Like pets, they give unconditional love

they do not judge

and they impart wisdom.

The Joy of Books (Part One)

The smell of books

The scent of print and paper

Some of them like the best cologne in the world

Some spanking new and clinical

Some sharp and gluey

Some sweet and elusive

Some deeply inky

Some second hand,

old, papery, leathery, musty,

earthy, damp, sour

Some impregnated with cigarette smoke

Some experienced worldy books

The ones they call dog eared, well thumbed

The ones that have lived a full, rich life

The wise old ones

that have the stains

the yellowed pages

And the strange odours to prove it

All the hands that have held them

Turned their pages

In daylight, or lamplight, or candle

All the eyes that have gazed upon their pages

Riveted, bored, entertained, comforted

All the rooms they have lived in

All the bookshelves they have marinated in

All the drawers they have got bored in

All the charity shops they have ended up in.

Blessed By Books

I’ve got four books on the go at the moment. I’m currently reading at various times of the day;

  1. The Great Gatsby – F. Scott Fitzgerald (I like to read this one late at night. I love Nick Carraway’s casual yet intense observations and the theme of obsessive love)
  2. Gather Together In My Name – Maya Angelou (Unputdownable for the most part and effortless reading. She has led such a full life)
  3. Star Trek First Contact – J.M Dillard (Interesting , character driven, lighter reading for the mornings, when I need to relax)
  4. The Brothers Karamazov – Dostoyevsky – Vol. 2 – (I haven’t read Vol. 1 and it starts at page 383, but it’s dark, tense and suspenseful. It also makes me wonder how many times can you drink to Russia? It seems, infinitely).

I don’t usually have so many books on the go at the same time. It’s usually just one or two, but lately, I am blessed by finding great little bookshops in unexpected places and being able to buy some wonderful books. This month, I’m feeling blessed by books.