All my life I have lived with and in books.
[“Book” is an Old English word (pre-1150 AD) and seems to be of Germanic origin.]
Books were in my parents’ house when I was born. I was encouraged to have my own library when I was a kid. Before I could make a living as a writer, I was a librarian. No surprise, books are in my home today.
I’m not sure why I keep books I have read (or intend to read) around me. They are on my walls, by my bed, and on my desk. Thus, the saying, “A house without books is like a body without a soul.” (Attributed to Cicero, the Roman philosopher and statesman, 106 BCE-43 BCE) has great meaning for me.
Maybe it’s as simple as “No furniture so charming as books.” (credited to Sydney Smith — an English writer, and Anglican cleric.). Or is it because, as the poet Ezra Pound once said, “Literature is news that stays news.”
It’s not just me. I recall an interview I once heard in which a writer (I no longer recall the name) was reminiscing about his father, an educator. It seems in later years his father became blind. The son recalls that his father would wander into his library and touch his books. When he came upon one he remembered, he would stand there, hold the book in his hands and recall its contents.
I have only to glance at a favorite book on a shelf and I can remember it (and the pleasure) it gave me. “A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies … The man who never reads lives only one.” George R.R. Martin.
When I watch the nightly news, there is often a backdrop of books behind the speaker. It could be a fake image, but when I look at those books, they are often real. Sometimes, discreetly displayed, a copy of a book written by the person being interviewed. I find it interesting to know what the speaker has read, is reading, and is writing. In the same fashion, when I visit someone’s home, and there are books about, I consider the phrase, “He is like an open book.” Merriam-Webster has it that “The meaning of AN OPEN BOOK is a person or thing that is easy to learn about and understand.”
When I moved from the city to my country home, I gave away some four thousand books to used book dealers. I’ve never liked selling them. On the other side of things, I admit that I buy books because I enjoy seeking them out, having them, and reading them. And, oh yes, writing them.
“You don’t have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.” Ray Bradbury
When I am working on a text, on a computer, I often print what I have written because having the words on paper helps me better sense what I have done. Now and again, when printing, I even format the pages so they truly look like a book.
In short, as Jorge Luis Borges once said, “I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library.”