A mountain of paper, a sea of ink

Two hours or so ago, while trying to draw, I somehow came up with the idea of reading some books for inspiration. I remembered that I hadn’t read my copy of C.S. Lewis’s Narrative Verse yet, so I thought that I would just grab the book, read a few pages, and return to my drawing with renewed energy.

Then again, I hadn’t considered the state of my bookshelves.

I think it’s a common problem for readers: you buy and buy and read and read until you run out of shelves — and then any space not occupied by a household appliance, piece of furniture, or person is commandeered by crazy book piles. In my case, I have three bookshelves, and most of the shelves have double rows of books. Trying to get one of the “hidden” books often results in the whole front row crashing down on the unfortunate person. My room often resembles a disaster area, except instead of rubble I have books and the occasional stray page.

Once I tried to organize my books. It took me the better part of a day, but the sense of satisfaction lasted for weeks. The ordered arrangement didn’t.

So as I looked for my book I navigated shelves of physics textbooks jostling against high fantasy and apologetics, Christian devotionals rubbing shoulders with science fiction anthologies, books about cats and drug addiction and Japanese history; tragedies and comic book anthologies and cookbooks and computer magazines; and, just to confuse me, my old notebooks (empty of coherent notes) and sketchpads (which contain more equations than drawings). I dived into piles upon piles of hardcovers and paperbacks. Then I moved on to the books stacked on the floor, inside my cabinets, and in the space under my desk and computer table.

One and a half hours later I found Narrative Verse in my brother’s room, where it lay in a closet under two Calvin and Hobbes collections, the illustrated Stardust, vol.1 of the School Rumble manga, A Game of Thrones, Ateneo’s standard Theology textbook, Mathematical Physics, and Asterix at the Olympic Games. And a bedroll. I don’t know when my brother started lumping sleeping gear and books together, but I guess he’s just trying to make the most out of the available space. I’m just glad he isn’t piling his shoes on top of my books. Messy bookshelves are one thing, muddy covers are another.

Sometimes I feel that I should take better care of my books; should make sure, at least, that I know where things are instead of having vague combinations of Title-Author-Location floating around in my head. A lot of bibliophiles may think that I don’t treat books with respect and should stick to maltreating photocopied versions. But I do try. I certainly love my books and hunt the missing ones down with persistence, if not efficiency. I just can’t guarantee they’ll be the kind of copies secondhand bookstores will want to buy.

I don’t let books stay on their shelves too long. I believe in re-reading good books, in taking them around with you and sneaking a few pages in between classes or while standing in line, in slipping them into backpacks and handbags so you can share them with friends you happen to meet, in going to sleep with your head pillowed on Arfken and then waking up because the Belgariad is giving you backache. We have our own ways of loving for books. Mine is to live with them.

Last 5 posts by Mia

Column: Who's Preying on Whom?: Two Experiences - May 24th, 2008
Column: The need for more libraries, or for better bookstores - May 6th, 2008
LIRA poetry workshop now accepting applicants - April 8th, 2008
November 2007 reading list: Retellings - November 30th, 2007
Ang Bagong Libro exhibit: site remix - November 5th, 2007

Share and Enjoy: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.

June 14, 2007 Written by: Mia | Filed Under Books, Reading

Comments

5 Responses to “A mountain of paper, a sea of ink”

Yukitsu on June 15th, 2007 12:21 am

Hmm. I’m relatively organized with my things. The recent ones, anyway. I have boxes and shelves upon messy shelves of books, paper, scratch paper, and old romance paperbacks in the attic, but the books that are either really close to my heart or bought anytime in the last four years are in my room’s shelf. The ones upstairs are the books I read because there was nothing to read — some of them are older than I am.

… It’s a little barren. Lol. But relatively well-organized. Now I feel like fixing the upstairs books sometime.
giyenah on June 15th, 2007 10:19 am

Fortunately, I have a sister who makes it her personal mission to reorganize our bookshelves at monthly intervals, despite being lazy for any other household chore. -_-;; Last month, I showed her some pictures of bookshelves arranged by color: this and this. She spent the rest of the weekend rearranging our mass paperbacks. It’s suprisingly pretty. She would have done it with our trade paperbacks and hardbacks too, but we don’t have enough books to cover the colors in the spectrum.^_^

The problem starts, however when I pry out the books for reading. I never put them back in their original place. I also have a tendency of loving some books to destruction. XD Like books missing front covers just because I’ve been rereading them too often.
Mia on June 15th, 2007 4:06 pm

I need to learn how to fix things. Haha.
tin on June 16th, 2007 6:54 am

My bookshelves are dreadfully disorganized XD; Not that I’ve ever felt the need to organize them though I like keeping all my books in one place. I do have a collection of paperbacks which I keep in storage back at home and every so often I feel this twitch to drive to the province and haul the stuff back to my apartment (at which point it will be unlivable).

As for taking care of books, I used to wrap the more expensive ones in plastic covers–it must be some sort of ingrained cultural habit–but have stopped doing so as I realized it was a bit, well, tacky.

Now I like books that look read. I like them dog-eared and slightly battered.
Read Or Die Weblog » Blog Archive » Of multiplying books and other oddities on September 21st, 2007 5:00 pm

[…] I have two copies of Fitzgerald’s translation of The Iliad; I hid one in my brother’s closet so my shelf wouldn’t look too silly. The duplication, however, was not my fault but my […]