A message from Christmas 1950

[tamaranth]

Xmas1950
Originally uploaded by tamaranth

Just over seven years ago, in November 2001, I went through my father's library dividing the books into three piles: the books he'd want with him as soon as he moved to the nursing home, the books he probably wouldn't miss, and the books he was likely to ask for when he was better.

'Better', of course, never happened.

I collected five boxes of books from my sister's cellar in early January, and today (feeling melancholy anyway, so no good mood to break) I decided to sort them out.

They smell of home. Old home: the damp, smoky, mouldy cottage in Essex, which my father left in 1987. There are cobwebs clinging to the pages, dead spiders, dust. Some books contain the oddest bookmarks: when he came to visit me for the Boat Show in 1995, he was reading Woodes Rogers, Life Aboard A British Privateer, and using a Travelcard from Balham as a bookmark; there's a till receipt from 1994, halfway through a Dudley Pope novel, "Whiskas, Chocolate Mousse, Mushrooms, Bakery".

Some of the books might be worth something. (If I sell everything I've listed on Amazon today, I'll make over £100.) There's a proof copy of a nautical memoir, dated 1960. (My Informed Source tells me there is not much demand for this sort of thing, in this sort of genre.)

Some of them are only worth something to me, like the battered copy of Slocum's Sailing Alone Around the World ("duplicate work in your catalogue!" LibraryThing observes): dedication shown above. That was ten years before he met my mother. I vaguely recall him talking of Shirley, but who was Valerie?

Some of them are the furniture of my childhood: I'm still sure that if I only concentrate hard enough, I'll be able to recall the exact sequence of my mother's Nevil Shute novels (now mine) on the bookshelf next to the fireplace. I picked up Requiem for a Wren and started reading. That's nothing I ever did at home.

I've sorted all the boxes, ~260 books. My hands, my clothes, were filthy by the time I'd finished. About 180 are going to the nearest charity shop (they can discard what they can't use). A few were so badly damaged that they're being ... well, used for Art. Some -- those in better condition, rare or hard to find, obscure, old -- are up for sale on Amazon, though frankly I'll be surprised if many sell. And some I'll keep, not for their content but for their significance to me as objects.

When I die, I don't want my books to moulder in a cellar. I want them to be loved by somebody else. I want them to be read.

Comments

[woolymonkey.livejournal.com]

You're right: books should be read. Though I wish I had a few of my dad's books - ones he had time to share with me, like Archy and Mehitabel, or ones whose titles I used to read and wonder what the hell they were.

You've done good stuff today. Be sad, but don't let it drag you down.

[pennski.livejournal.com]

Try the nautical memoir on coughingbear !

[sushidog.livejournal.com]

ter my grandfather died, my grandmother broke her arm, and needed some extra help; various family members pitched in,a nd I spent a week acting as live-in cook, nurse's aide, chauffeur, and companion to her. I started reading an old collection of short stories which had been my grandfather's (some of the stories have a pencil notation in his handwriting, to note how long it takes to read them aloud), and was one of several in a series; A Century of Detective Stories, a Century of Creepy Stories, a Century of Humour, and so on. They had five of them,. I think. Anyway, my grandmother insisted that I take the whole lot home with me, because she knew I'd read and enjoy them, rather than letting them just sit on a shelf.

She died a few weeks later. I've added to the collection, picking up books frhe same series in second hand shops and so on, and I read them now and then.

[ladymoonray.livejournal.com]

Well done for getting through such a difficult task. Most of your father's books will be read and loved by other people, including you.

[marypcb.livejournal.com]

I should prod Simon to make an official notation about donating his books to the foundation. I'd either like mine read or donated to somewhere like my college library that could recycle them into other books.

[(Anonymous)]

I've occasionally brought books home from second.hand shops, not because I really wanted them, but because - as you said - books should be read.

It's a good thing hat your father's books are no longer hidden away in boxes.

[stevegreen.livejournal.com]

I have a book by the actor Crispin Glover which is essentially another text (Rat Catching) with notes, pastings and doodles all over it. I met him in Manchester, so it's personalised to Ann and myself.