ReadingAnimals

Last weekend I came home to find that the water tank had broken and leaked water all over the garage floor. The garage happens to be full of boxes from the last time I moved. Some of those boxes contained books, and some of those books didn’t fare so well in this flood.

So why have I left boxes of books out in the garage for two years instead of donating them to charity or buying yet another bookshelf so that more can take residence inside where I might see them or reference them, hold them or scan them? Carry them to the stack by my bed where my current favorites rest and “to-dos” wait patiently? I really don’t have room for another bookshelf, so unless I start sleeping on stacks of books… they will remain stored.

The question remains, if I haven’t looked at them even once in two years, why keep them? Why not donate them?

For me I think it comes down to the fact that these books are a record of my reading history, and thus part of my intellectual evolution. They aren’t just waterlogged stacks of paper, they are a record of my interests and efforts. They are intellectual artefacts.

The books that got the worst of this recent flood have been propped open or hung to dry. One binder full collected papers was not salvageable, and I did retire the paper (but not the binder) to the recycling bin. I wish I had time to iron pages and press them flat between my heaviest of heavy possessions. I imagine they will stay wavy and warped - but they will stay with me at least for now. They won’t remain anonymous though; I have pledged to log them all into LibraryThing before putting them into new, safe rubbermaid homes.