You know what I'm talking about.
That constant stream of photos that do the rounds on social media, attracting drooling "likes", adoring retweets, and gushing comments:
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| OMG IT'S A PACMAN SHELF CAUSE PACMAN WAS RENOWNED FOR HIS LOVE OF CHERRIES & BOOKS |
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| It's a bookshelf that says READ, because that's insightful and encouraging, you know? |
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| I'm going to get a pointy house just so I can build this! |
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| ARGHGHGH IT'S A POD A READING POD SO ERGONOMIC |
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| It's an ideas tree, can you FEEL your creativity GROWING? Also books are made of trees so it's like a life cycle. |
I realise I sound like a bitter illiterate (billiterate?) sow, but honestly, have you people never heard of dust?
Sure, these bookshelves are marvellously creative and appeal to our collective sense of whimsy, but let's think of the practicalities.
You show me one of these bookshelves IN REAL LIFE, and I'll show you a warren of so many dust bunnies you could re-enact Watership Down.
Honestly, all these internet people with fancy bookshelves must live in hermetically sealed, climate controlled environments, where no dust can permeate.
Or maybe they clean regularly or something. Whatever.
All I know is that it seems sometimes that these pictures appeal to people because they fancy themselves as "book people".
You know, the kind of people who imagine themselves as thoroughly literate types, with iced tea and organic mini-muffins on hand as they tuck themselves into their bohemian book nook to take in the latest insert 'posh' or 'cred' author here.
Bless you, if you are one of those people. I often wish I could be like you. You probably wash your hair in pure mountain streams and knit your own hemp trousers. All very admirable, until your allergies play up from all the dust collecting on your stack of Frankie magazines.
Me? I'm trying to clear out books from Chez Clumsy. I've got too many. Of course there are a few favourite fictions and cherished non-fictions that I'll always hold onto, but the vast majority have no re-read value. They're just dust collectors.
Before you slam me as having no romance in my soul, please remember that bagging books does not mean I'm bagging reading.
I bought myself an iPad before heading to Burma last year, and I can tell you that the main thing I've used it for is reading eBooks. The damn thing's a bloody marvel. I don't even have to dog-ear a page to remember where I'm up to. THE iPAD REMEMBERS.
And sure, while the first books I read on it were Stieg Larsson's Millenium Trilogy, followed by A Clash of Kings (aka Game of Thrones Series 2), I have just finished Hilary Mantel's Bring Up the Bodies, and that's PROPER literary.
Also, you can't get paper cuts from iPads. Paper cuts frighten me on a level only topped by geckos. Just consider this for a moment: getting a paper cut ON YOUR EYEBALL.
Yeah.
I once thought of that, and then almost vomited. The thought has haunted me ever since. I shouldn't even write it here, lest the mere noting of the fear helps it manifest in the form of outraged hemp-knitting, Frankie devotees baying for my blood in between cups of dandelion tea.
Point is - is it OK to not like having books around the place anymore? Have I completely lost my soul because I want less dust in my house?
" please remember that bagging books does not mean I'm bagging reading" hear, hear about time someone said it.
ReplyDeletealso "getting a paper cut ON YOUR EYEBALL" have you every considered writing horror fiction because that is damn terrifying.
I knew someone who got a paper cut on their eyeball. A breeze blew a pile of papers up and one hit them in the eye before they could blink.
ReplyDeleteIt hurt. It really really hurt.
I have consider not buying any more physical books as I am out of space or close enough and have enough to read to last a good long while at the pace I am going.
ReplyDeleteThey don't even need to fancy shelves to collect dust if you never go near there.
Do not under any circumstances move your bookcase into the garage. Oh man the amount of dust on my books is scary.
ReplyDeleteYou mean dust is, like, optional? I thought it was just something that came with books, like silverfish & eyestrain. I'd invite you to look at our vast but very conventionally shaped shelves but, you know, the resident geckos (dozens of them with their cute little sticky feet) might be a problem. I've taken some photos of those feet btw - did you know that each toe looks like a little fern? Anyway, we are also trying to cut back on the physical books. Pity we can't stop buying them.
ReplyDeleteDo not get on the internet and look up 'eye slice gif'. Do not. Wait. You are googling it right now. I see you typing. Closing my tab didn't help. I still KNOW. Don't do it. Just don't.... Told ya.
ReplyDeleteGC ,
ReplyDeleteI have these funny named growths on my eyeball ,heading toward my cornea, that my Doctor said would have to be SCRAPED of with a SCALPEL in about 5 to 10 years.
Apparently you wear an eyepatch and your eye looks like "chopped liver"-end quote.
I've seen these bookcases on Maninteresting.something.
JB put me onto it.
Yeah that's right JB did it, blame him.
Now back to my eyeball...
I had a friend of the family who had proper bookshelves, with hundreds of hardbacks inside glass walls. They'd barely been touched.
ReplyDeleteBy contrast, my crusty paperbacks litter the floor, and are stained by splashes of coffee and soup, and the older ones bear witness to the odd gnawing of long-gone dogs.
I'd look at his pristine collection, waiting to be sold upon his death for far less than they deserve, and sigh with lust.