Sarah's Books - Used & Rare

Reading about reading, books about books.  Whenever I don't know what to read next (not like this is a common problem, ahem), I circle back to books on this beloved subject.  One such, Housekeeping vs. The Dirt by Nick Hornby (Believer Books 2006), lingered on my bedside table for a long time this winter.  Essays about books purchased and read, or not read as the case may be.  I see from paging back through my journal that I did read it again a few months ago, and meant to share a few bits of it with you, here.  So, forthwith:

"I would like my personal reading map to resemble a map of the British Empire circa 1900; I'd like people to look at it and think, How the hell did he end up right over there?  As it is, I make only tiny little incursions into the territory of my own ignorance - every year, another classic novel conquered here, a couple of new literary biographies beaten down there.  To be honest, I'm not sure that I can spare the troops for conquests further afield: they're needed to quell all the rebellions and escape attempts at home." (p.51)

I love that, although in reading as in life I tend to think in terms of peaceful resolution, if not out-and-out white-flag-waving surrender, rather than conquest.

But back to the book - besides being wry and entertaining, Hornby is also very quotable:

"...the great thing about books is that you'll read anything that a good writer wants you to read." (p.78)

And just one more:

"There comes a point in life, it seems to me, where you have to decide whether you're a Person of Letters or merely someone who loves books, and I'm beginning to see that the book lovers have more fun.  Persons of Letters have to read things like Candide or they're a few letters short of the whole alphabet; book lovers, meanwhile, can read whatever they fancy." (p.88)

I don't mind being a few letters short.  When I had my bookshop, I remember many many people assuming that I was an English major, simply because they saw me surrounded by books.  But no, I was not.  And there are so many classics I have never read and never intend to read.  I remain free to read what I want, not what I should - I remain endlessly curious about the places and things and people that I myself am endlessly curious about - with no apologies.  Speaking of which, Samuel Johnson and Benjamin Franklin are still fraternizing on my bedside table - volumes of their Letters are half read and patiently sitting back-to-back and have been for months now, and recent arrivals have covered them over like the rising tide.  Yet they endure.  Anchors, or even better, ballast.  I know I'll return to them at some point.  Right now I'm too busy being a mere book lover.