Monday, December 14, 2009

The Kennedy Lending Library


Did I mention?

I spent the last couple of weekends finishing going through the moving boxes and bins. Oh yes, I totally mentioned this, in light of my darling man's bin o'bullets.

So, it was really last Sunday, this Saturday and part of this Sunday. That I spent dealing with the garage and all in it. But I've now been through every box and bin, extracted what I wanted, bookshelved the books that need to be out in the world and re-stored the rest.

Thus I restored the deserving to the shelves and re-stored the rest.

Hey, at least I amuse myself.

Why, you ask, was this so important, what with Christmas shopping, decorating, tree-trimming, menu-planning and baking to conduct?

I was tired of empty bookshelves.

It's a whole-house thing. People are coming to stay for Christmas and my house wasn't yet totally together. Right: because my bookshelves were empty.

So I got them all out. Sorted all my books into piles. By priority of love. By author. And I decided who I needed to have out, readily available and who could live in boxes in the garage. Yes, for those of you who like to give me grief about my lists, I'm making a database, with box numbers, for the books in storage. Just a few short, sweet steps away.

See, in the old house, I had a full wall of built-in bookshelves. Plus a bookshelf in my office, one in David's office and one in the basement. The Annex, doncha know. I also kept a literal wooden chest in the dressing room that was my TBR pile. It was my TBR treasure chest.

Did I mention the new house has no storage?

No basement. No attic. Just an oversized two-car garage with shelves. We have one "small" built-in bookshelf and three portable bookshelves we moved, including the annex bookshelf. They absorbed more than I thought.

At a guesstimate, two-thirds of our books are "out." Which isn't bad.

How I chose ended up being like love. Oh yes, I first I tried to be methodical: which books do I regularly reference? Which topics will I be writing about, mulling over, nostagically wanting to revisit in the near future?

And what about the vistor/vanity aspect? I found myself evaluating which books might be on the shelves that would say something about me. Which led to which books might I mention, over dinner, say, that someone would want to borrow?

In the end, as love always does, it came down to what I like having near. I don't care what anyone else might think. Even though I might not re-read Anne McCaffrey's Dragonflight series in the near future (make no mistake: I'm now seriously contemplating it), I have it on the shelf. As I have had since I was, oh, twelve, thirteen, something like that. And because I couldn't let any of her other books feel bad, they're all out, too.

Yes, I have everything she's ever written.

Which is also true of my other great loves. A.S. Byatt, Ann Patchett. Orson Scott Card, Mercedes Lackey, Jacqueline Carey, Diana Gabaldon, Margaret Atwood. They all have their space on my limited shelves.

It's a kind of homage, really.

And maybe that's what I realized, in doing this. That the likelihood of my opening and referencing the book has nothing to do with it. I like seeing them there. Just like I like to see the art on the walls, hear the music on the cd player and watch the sun set outside.

It's enough to set my juices humming.

9 comments:

  1. What's that muffled voice I hear coming from the garage? It's sounds a little like Joan Vinge. And Tanith Lee and Vonda McIntyre. What are they saying? Something about "vengence"?

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  2. actually Joan disappeared from the library some time ago...hadn't thought about her in years. But Tanith and Vonda? proudly on the shelf with the others!

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  3. Oh, good. I wouldn't want Tanith mad at you. She's pretty dark.

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  4. My dream house will have a library...floor-to-ceiling shelves on all four walls (except for the huge windows). Then, perhaps, I can finally unpack that last box of books. :-)

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  5. Glass books, Keena, is what we need!

    And yes, Kev -- no one wants to cross Tanith. Who knows how she would mutate us???

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  6. Awww...I lurve me some Joan Vinge. I was totally in love with Catspaw...

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  7. The Snow Queen and the Summer Queen were big favorites of mine, but I think I must have gotten them from the library. I see she was in a car wreck in 2002, which left her unable to write. Sad.

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  8. My god. How could I have missed the glory and splendor of this post?

    Cheers and congrats on finding a home for most of them.

    Did you leave room for the lizard?

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  9. the lizard is sleeping now (shh...) but thanks, KAK, for being sure to check on what was likely the ONLY post you ever missed!

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