Wednesday, August 24, 2005

Buried in Books

As a continuation, of sorts, to my post yesterday, someone sent this article from the LA Times to the Child_Lit list, where we've been having a discussion about owning lots of books, and I thought I'd share it with all you bibliophiles and bookaholics !

For me, most of these problems aren't the issue - I simply don't have the space in this tiny attic, for hundreds of books - both my bookcases are overflowing, and the tower of books I was talking about yesterday actually sits atop the 2-ring cooker (there's a tin cover over the ring so the books aren't sitting on a dirty cooker !) There's a smaller pile, consisting of the three Watcher's Guides to Buffy, and a half a dozen other books, including my current read(s) alongside the computer, atop the cupboard which also holds the microwave (which gets used very rarely). Someone, when I mentioned the pile on top of the cooker recently, asked how I cooked dinner. Which earned the blankest of looks from me, and then response "I put them on the bed out of the way, and then move them back after I've done the washing up and the cooker has cooled down." (Seems perfectly logical to me) Of course this revelation caused jokes about "cooking the books" - and will probably earn me frowns from some folks, but when your living space is a tiny 8 * 10 foot room that's not even a rectangle and features sloping ceilings on which you bang your head if you stand up without moving sideways, there's not a lot you can do ! If anyone has a spare mansion they want to let me live in rent-free, apply here ! In the meantime, I juggle books about in order to live my life with my (relatively mild) obsession - at least I use my public library a lot, which saves me having even more books I can't house...

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Umm - you live in the UK and are measuring your "apartment" in "feet"? ;)

My living space is of a similar, er, expansiveness, and I solve the problem by piling stuff on any surface I'm not sitting on (sofa/couch, etc), and using the trunk/boot of my car to store out of season or other extra stuff.

Anonymous said...

Ah, sorry, you said "attic" not "aparment". As I said, I tend to not read beyond the first letter sometimes!

Michele said...

I measure it in feet because I'm still in the Dark Ages - didn't you know that by now ?! :-D