Libraries, Public & Private
We've got a lot of books. Not as many as I'd like, and sometimes when I'm contemplating pulling something off the shelf to read I find myself disconcerted by the lack of books by the giants of literature - what's all this 80's and 90's stuff? (O.k., sure, a lot of it's really good, but 50 years from now, will they be among the great works? I mean, I even wonder about DeLillo.) But even though I have trouble remembering what's in all these books, how good, how bad, what I loved about them when I read them first, etc., I can remember one thing, a negative: I know exactly where every book I ever lent out is. I know who's got my copy of Shipping News (yes, it is too mine), Clockers, Cities of Salt . . . every one of them that has gone out and never come back. (On the other hand, I do sometimes equally find myself surprised to realize that something on the shelf came from someone else's collection and never made it home; sometimes it's only fair, though.) Over at Thief of Time there's a nice post about the etiquette of book-lending, particularly in regard to the one aspect that always presents a dilemma for people who are more focussed on their canonical reading than on just what will get them through the airport: how to refuse a book you don't want to read. Granted, that collection of Rushdie essays that turned up one day after I'd said it sounded interesting - not, oh, I'd like to read that, mind you, just, oh? interesting - actually turned out to be mostly very enjoyable and sometimes very good, but I've been handed James Patterson as if he's the next Raymond Chandler, so I know this problem well. Nevertheless, like the public libraries, I want my books back, especially as (a) I'm nice enough to lend them if you ask, but (b) not pushy enough to force it into your hands. Because memory is flawed, my own as well as yours, I think I'd better start a catalog. The prospect of setting up a database does not fill me with anticipation, not the good kind, anyway.