Too Many Books?

I’ve grown up around books. There were floor to ceiling bookshelves in my Grandparent's farmhouse, and now they’ve been forced to downsize there are floor to ceiling in their terraced house, bookshelves full of books older than me, older than my parents, older than them. Books that have been read and re-read, loaned and passed down and loved, books full of memories.

In my parents house, again, there are floor to ceiling bookshelves of books, two or sometimes three books thick. There are books behind books, and books on top of books, books in cupboards, books under tables and books in piles by the bed.

I have, quite literally grown up surrounded by the written word, by Jane Austen and James Herriot and Isaac Asimov and Agatha Christie. By the Classics and by Danielle Steele, by books that my Great-Granny passed down and by books picked up for £1 in service stations and now, I have boxes of books in my friends loft. I have filled all available bookshelves in the house I now share with my boyfriend. There are books upon books under our spare bed, and piles in front of the bedside cabinet that you have to move to open the drawers. There are books in the back of my car and books in the drawers of my desk at work and for the first time in my entire life as my boyfriend tears out his hair and half seriously threatens to leave if another book finds it’s way from the shop to our house, I find myself asking: is there such a thing as too many books.

I think the problem is that I buy faster than I read – which is saying something as I read quite fast – and I buy outside of my means. In a spacial sense rather than a monetary. I buy books that I have no space to store and once I have bought them I am incapable of parting with them. It doesn’t bother me. I’d happily keep on buying, I’d use them as a table, I’d use them as a bed. I would happily live in a house that overflowed with books. I don’t care but when I live with a none-reader, in a small house, when all available shelving and some space that’s actually not quite available is taken up with books then I have to consider a compromise. Like Ian says to me, time after time after time: there has to be a limit. This is a habit that we cannot keep feeding.

So, do I accept that right now I have just the right amount of books, and that any more would be too many and resign myself to a life where there is no bookshop browsing, no picking up brand new books, no stroking their spines lovingly and breathing in their smell and slotting them carefully into their place (alphabetically by author surname) on my already full to bursting bookshelf; a life where there are no second hand bookshops, no hours spend rooting through piles and shelves and boxes, no flipping of the tummy on the discovery of a beautiful edition of a book that I love, that I can’t just leave behind.

Do I resign myself to a life where I don’t buy any more books?

I don’t think I can.

Or, do I accept that in order to keep feeding my habit, I have to first get rid of something. I have to first get rid of some books. That probably makes the most sense. After all, I probably don’t need all the books I have. Some of them I’ll probably never read again. But where does one begin to get rid of pieces of one’s soul?

Do I start with the duplicates? Do I get rid of the first edition BFG, or the copy that comes in a set with Roald Dahl’s other works, thus rendering that set incomplete? Do I get rid of the green penguin paperback version of Little Women that I read every Christmas, or the blue hard-backed copy that my Mum gave to me with it’s pretty illustrations? I have 7 different editions of the Alice books, and I love each of them for different reasons. How do I decide which one to keep? I have to keep them all, it’s the only option.

Or maybe it’s the books from my childhood that should be re-homed. The LM Montgomery and the E Nesbit and the Enid Blyton. The Melvin Burgess and the Beatrix Potter and the Arthur Ransome. Maybe I should wave goodbye to Ballet Shoes and When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit and The Peppermint Pig. I doubt I’d ever read them again now – I’m almost 28 after all – but how can I part with them when every single word represents who I am today. My entire life is tied up in those sometimes dog-eared, sometimes yellowing, always loved pages. Getting rid of them would be like getting rid of my memories and the very thought is enough to make my chest feel tight. There are already books that have gotten lost in the passing of time, and to think about them fills me with sadness. I long for my copy of ‘Nobody Knows I Have Delicate Toes’ which I can probably still recite verbatim and I clapped my hands in delight just a fortnight ago when I found my old set of James Herriot books, bought for 25p each at a charity shop 15 years ago, in my parents attic. No, I can’t get rid of my childhood books, besides, I’d like to read them to my children one day.

Surely, then, the obvious choice would be the books I hated. ‘The Boy in the Striped Pyjama’s.’ I could get rid of that, and books like it. Books that I would give minus points to if I could, books that I am embarrassed to own. Clearly though, not that embarrassed though because there they still sit. Books like the Twilight Saga that I know I won’t read again because they were bad, but that I’m glad I read for the social aspect. The thing is, that in order to appreciate the good you have to make space for the bad. Bad experiences shape a person as much as wonderful ones, and how do you know what wonderful is if you shy away from the awful? It would be superficial of me wouldn’t it, to only surround myself with the beautiful?

& I want pretty books. I want those gorgeous hardbacked editions of the Classics even though I have dog-eared copies of them all. I want that musty old edition of ‘Five Go Off In A Caravan’ from the second-hand bookshop and I want the pretty Waterstones Exclusives of Mark Haddon and Haruki Murakami. & 7 editions of Alice is never going to be enough. I want every book written by every author that I love.

You know why?

Because there’s no such thing as too many books.

On Saturday night I saw an open air production of Alice in Wonderland, staged by Off The Ground Theatre Company.

Oh dear.

Now, whilst I like the theatre, I am by no means an expert on all things theatrical so please don't think that this little review is backed up by any knowledge because it's not. It's based purely on my own opinion and my opinion is this: the show was disappointing.

I am willing to admit that my love of all things Alice might mean my expectations were unrealistically high but I think it was more than that. The play failed to hold my interest: it kicked off at 6.30pm and by 7pm I was checking my watch and being surprised at how little time had passed.
It felt disjointed and even knowing the book back to front and inside out like I do I found it very hard to follow - my friend Helen said afterwards that it would have benefitted from some kind of narrator and she is exactly right; without the glue that a narrator would have provided things seem to flounder; they jumped from scene to scene with no explanation as to how or why meaning that a lot of the genius there is in the text was just lost and you just had no idea what was happening. Several times I had to really try to figure out just exactly which point of the story we were at. The Caucus Race just seemed like 16 people running around and the scene where the White Rabbit thinks Alice is Mary Ann was just a blur. They stuck in 'The Walrus and the Carpenter' recited by a VERY random TweedleDee and TweedleDum who appeared from nowhere and served no purpose, which was odd considering that's not even from the same book (although, yes, I know it's in the Disney film) and the whole thing just felt a little bit like everybody was trying too hard to be a bit quirky when if they'd let it the story could have done the work for them. The use of modern jokes (the weakest link; CCTV; points mean prizes etc) just grated on me - if their production had been stronger then they wouldn't have needed those. Alice has stood the test of time for long enough to not need to be feebly dragged into 2011. All that combined with the poor staging and the less than great acting meant that the audience (mostly small children) grew bored well before the interval so the second half was peppered with under 5's running on and off the 'set' (a fact the cast dealt with remarkably well, to give them their dues.)

All of that said, I know it can't have been easy: trying to put on a show such as Alice with no stage, little scenery and very few props must have been a challenge, and there were elements that I thought were very clever. The way they used members of the cast dressed in black to form the rabbit hole for example was very well done, parts of it did make me laugh and it was by no means a terrible production. I just feel it didn't reach it's potential, and I wish I'd had some wine.

day 05 - a book that makes you happy

“That's the effect of living backwards," the Queen said kindly: "it always makes one a little giddy at first…”

I have no words. No actual words. Alice makes me happier than a happy thing. Always has done, always will do. I absolutely prefer ‘Through The Looking Glass’ to ‘Wonderland’ but I love them both so so much. How can you not:

`It's a stupid name enough!' Humpty Dumpty interrupted impatiently. `What does it mean?'

`Must a name mean something?' Alice asked doubtfully.

`Of course it must,' Humpty Dumpty said with a short laugh: `my name means the shape I am -- and a good handsome shape it is, too. With a name like yours, you might be any shape, almost.'

`Why do you sit out here all alone?' said Alice, not wishing to begin an argument.

`Why, because there's nobody with me!' cried Humpty Dumpty. `Did you think I didn't know the answer to that? Ask another.'

`Don't you think you'd be safer down on the ground?' Alice went on, not with any idea of making another riddle, but simply in her good-natured anxiety for the queer creature. `That wall is so very narrow!'

`What tremendously easy riddles you ask!' Humpty Dumpty growled out. `Of course I don't think so! Why, if ever I did fall off -- which there's no chance of -- but if I did --' Here he pursed up his lips, and looked so solemn and grand that Alice could hardly help laughing. `If I did fall,' he went on, `the King has promised me -- ah, you may turn pale, if you like! You didn't think I was going to say that, did you? The King has promised me -- with his very own mouth -- to -- to --'

`To send all his horses and all his men,' Alice interrupted, rather unwisely.

`Now I declare that's too bad!' Humpty Dumpty cried, breaking into a sudden passion. `You've been listening at doors -- and behind trees -- and down chimneys -- or you couldn't have known it!'

`I haven't indeed!' Alice said very gently. `It's in a book.'”