Monday, April 9, 2007

My Library

I used to enjoy reading, when I was in the fourth grade. When I got to be a grad student I kind of lost my taste for it. 4 solid years of serious study and research, left me literarily bereft of any desire to read.

I have been unpacking a few things recently, and since I came across yet another box of books, that's the 16th, it reminded me of how good it feels to read for the fun of it. I have been reading on the way back and forth on the train everyday, and I am seeriously enjoying having an hour to read everyday.

It is always fun to meet someone new and then get to see their library. It's so fascinating. "Oh, look, Strunk and White." "She has a bird book." "There's Janson's History of Art right next to
Latin America at the Crossroads
." So much to learn about a person from their library. "He has a dictionary in the bathroom."

I started a list of books in the sidebar.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think you can extend the idea a bit to include Libraries in general.

For instance, a person's record/CD/tape/video/DVD library can be another interesting view into someone's tastes. (NOTE: that's tastes, not TASTE. ;)

Also, it's interesting to see someone's reaction to having their libraries examined by someone else. Even though they are out on display, they are also -- somehow -- personal. It's like having someone look inside your head and have them suddenly know everything about that time in your life where you thought that DISCO was the coolest thing in the world.

~ lauren said...

i love looking at what people have in their bookshelves.

it's always leads to such interesting topics of converstations. and like suthsc mentions, very personal.

shawnkielty said...

yep, yep, yep!

It's so cool.

Jeffersonian Democrat said...

I met a guy who has more and varied books than I do, and a wife who let him build bookshelves all over the basement. I imagine my library with the galleries and the rolling ladders....Homer Simpson: "MMMM...Libraries..aughhhh(drooling)"

DISCO isn't the coolest thing in the world?

shawnkielty said...

Now I am thinking or Joge Luis Borges Library of Babel, which describes a library with endless chambers of books, that go on and on ... or not.

Eclectchick said...

Then there are the neverending bookshelves in Carlos Ruiz Zafon's "The Shadow of the Wind."