The Book Roadie

Hunter or Gatherer?

Posted on January 26, 2011January 23, 2011 by The Book Roadie

John DeNardo posits here that there are two types of book buyers — Hunters, who know exactly what they want and enter a bookstore or library to find it, buy it, and leave; and Gatherers, who browse around to see what catches their interest. Of course, either sort may occasionally go into the opposite mode depending on the circumstances, but a lot of folks seem to fall mostly into one camp.

For me, it’s situational. Physical bookstores, especially those with used books, send me into Gatherer mode. I find myself wandering through my usual sections but occasionally being drawn into the others by an unseen tug that leads me to a strange book I either can’t stop myself from buying or stare at in amused horror and regale friends with the fact that it exists.

I’m enough of a collector now that I don’t use my local libraries (and with as many unread books as I have, it seems counter-productive), but when I was a kid I routinely checked out the maximum number of books allowed because I found so many interesting things while browsing. As a college student, going into the campus library to do research frequently resulted in me leaving with at least a couple books for my own reading (the library at the college I attended had some absolutely gorgeous older editions of novels that drew me like a moth to a flame).

Being a Gatherer has definite risks — I often joke that it’s not safe for me to take a credit card into a bookstore — but it also has great rewards. I can’t count the number of books I got because they were nearby a book I was looking for specifically, or because their cover or title or subject caught my eye.

Online, though, I’m a hunter. Someone will mention a book and it will sound interesting, so I’ll hit Amazon or Powell’s and get it. I don’t really browse websites, they’re too ethereal for me to get a sense of the book.

Which type are you?

Someone Who Gets It

Posted on January 19, 2011January 23, 2011 by The Book Roadie

Last week, a friend came over to my place for lunch. She hadn’t been over before, and in fact, I don’t think visited my last apartment, either. It was a bit of a surprise to her, I think, to see my shelves and shelves of books. They surrounded us as we sat on my couch and chatted, so naturally we wound up talking about them.

She bemoaned the fact that most of her books are currently in storage, and said she’d been thinking about getting an ereader of some sort, but that seeing my collection made her remember the things she liked about physical books. The sensory input of turning a page, of seeing the cover every time you pick it up, of having the books on display as a design element in the room, the smell of an old book, that sort of thing.

It made me smile. This is the sort of person I roadie for. She gets it.

People who hear about my books and say, “so when are you getting a Kindle?” don’t get it. People who say “ooooh, now’s a perfect time to cull your books!” when you mention you’re moving don’t get it. Folks who have never walked into a used bookstore and closed their eyes and breathed deep with a blissful smile don’t get it.

They are not my Right People, to use one of Havi’s words.

And that’s okay! Not everyone has to be a bibliophile.

But for those folks who get it, I am here to say, Awesome, dude. I get it too. Let’s do this.

Hi. My name is Ealasaid, and I’m a bibliomaniac.

Posted on January 5, 2011January 2, 2011 by The Book Roadie

Happy New Year, all!

So, the lovely Kyeli has instituted a Book-Buying Ban for 2011. She owns a number of books she hasn’t read yet, you see, so she’s going to read them this year instead of buying new ones. She posted a pic of some of her unread books, and I couldn’t resist responding here with a photo of mine:

Yeah. I have kind of a lot of books to read. A total of 175, actually, I just ran and counted. Plus the 10 books I’m reading right now (ten, wtf, that’s a little ridiculous, even for me), and a small handful of comics. I own more unread books than some folks’ own books, period. Sheesh.

A while ago I tried instituting a sort of half-ban on buying books. I decided that for every 20 books I read and removed from my to-read shelves, I would allow myself to buy a few books. Not too many. It didn’t work. See, I included a loophole for authors I collect and subjects I collect, and I could make a justification for almost anything. Plus, at that point people tended to give me books or bookstore gift cards for presents. The only reason I have fewer than 200 books on those shelves is I did a purge a couple months back. Any book I wouldn’t be willing to buy if I didn’t already own it went into the get-rid-of pile. It wasn’t easy.

And, well, almost immediately after doing it, I went to Powell’s Books up in Portland and dropped about $300 on another 21 books. I sometimes joke that I’m doing better than I did back in college, when I had a $30/week habit, year in, year out. The college and university bookshops were my Kryptonite, man. So many awesome books!

I briefly considered doing some kind of similar ban to Kyeli’s, but quickly decided not to. I don’t do resolutions for New Years, and that kind of flat out denial doesn’t come easily. I am, however, making a conscious effort to read more. Yes, I probably already read more than the vast majority of Joe Schmoes, but I don’t read as much as I wish I did. I love reading and I have spiffy new reading glasses, so I’m’a get my read on in 2011. No specific goals, just the intention to churn through the unread shelves a little.

How many unread books do you have as we start the new year?

A Little Library Erotica

Posted on December 8, 2010December 8, 2010 by The Book Roadie

I’ve no doubt I’m not the only one who loves looking at photos of beautiful libraries.

Wired.com gives us a little tour of Jay Walker’s Library, which occupies more space than some houses.

Librophiliac’s Compendium of Beautiful Libraries has some real lookers, including the above. I’m a sucker for those extra-tall shelves with little walkways on them.

Oddee gives us 20 of the World’s Most Beautiful Libraries. The spiral staircase in this one makes me drool.

Campus Grotto is more specialized, and gives us 25 of the Most Beautiful College Libraries. Georgetown’s has so much natural light, I almost wish I’d gone to school there.

However, I went to Occidental College, which has a spiffy library. As a loyal alumnus, I have to give it props. The stacks are actually my favorite part of the library, but I couldn’t find a photo of them. Now I have a mission for next time I’m in LA!

My Hero

Posted on December 1, 2010December 1, 2010 by The Book Roadie

Last year, a game came out. A righteous game. A metal game. A game whose hero… was a roadie.

The game is Brütal Legend, and between its focus on heavy metal and the fact that its main character is voiced by and reminiscent of Jack Black (one of my fav actors), it was a match made in heaven. I adored it — all the more because its hero’s occasional philosophical ramblings about the duties of a roadie really appealed to me.

Last year I attended Ümloud,a charity event focused on Rock Band and similar music games. It happened right after Brütal Legend came out, so there was plenty of related stuff — costumes and so on — including one of a limited edition run of statues of the roadie hero himself, Eddie Riggs, up for bid in the silent auction. I’d been drooling over the things for months, trying and failing to win them in all sorts of weird contests, so I set myself a bid cap and went after it.

I managed to get it, partly by bluffing the crap out of the other guy who was bidding at the last minute.

Him: [outbids me].
Me: [outbids him with my maximum allowable expense]
Him: [reads the paper]
Me: [with a “make my day” expression] You wanna go for it? It’s for charity…
Him: Uh, you can have him.

I was overjoyed, even though when I got home, I discovered the statue had been damaged. The organizers of the auction had been carrying him around all evening and broken off the horns on his buckle and cracked the neck of his guitar.

Lucky me, though: I have an uncle who builds miniatures professionally. As in, has credits in movies for his work on them. He graciously agreed to take time out of his busy schedule to fix the poor guy up for me, and now he’s back in my possession! Look at that gorgeous guy.

Eddie’s determination and abilities really helped put into words what I’m striving to do here at The Book Roadie. He’s actually the reason I realized that what I was looking to be was a roadie… just, for books. It makes me smile every time I see him watching over my book collection.

Thanksgiving!

Posted on November 24, 2010November 24, 2010 by The Book Roadie

Ahh, Thanksgiving weekend. Well, for those of us in the US, anyway. A four day weekend! If you work it right, you spend the first day with relatives and stuffing yourself, and then you can spend the other three days relaxing.

Me, I’m going to spend them reading. And probably doing Havi’s 77 Things game. Also, I hope, recovering from the cold I’ve caught. *blows nose loudly*

Catch you on the flip side, people.

Book Nurseries

Posted on November 17, 2010November 17, 2010 by The Book Roadie

Man, I think my books breed at night.

That’s the only explanation I have for why I am constantly short on bookshelf space. Every time I move or reorganize my books or otherwise try to get them all sorted and properly sitting on shelves, I find I have nowhere near enough space for them.

I don’t buy that many books every year. Or get that many as gifts, even, these days (people who have seen my to-read shelves tend not to give me books. I’m not sure why).

Anyway, it’s a neverending dilemma, and when I moved to my new apartment, things were complicated by the fact that it uses baseboard heaters for warmth… and they are mounted along the nice, long walls in the main area. Walls with no windows. Walls which are perfect for bookshelves. But it’s unwise to block a baseboard heater, and I didn’t really relish the thought of having bookcases several inches out from the wall anyway (here in earthquake-ridden California, it’s wise to have bookshelves bolted to the wall, or at least shimmed to lean back against it).

I found enough wallspace for my existing bookshelves, but that wasn’t nearly enough.

After much angsting and gnashing of teeth and swearing at the friends who suggested tentatively that I consider *tfu tfu tfu* purging my collection, I hit on the somewhat-obvious solution: wall-mounted bookshelves!

So I hied myself hence to Southern Lumber and got myself some lumber and hardware. I had to backorder the brackets — I needed twenty-four of ’em, and they only had twelve — but by the end of this week, I will have my bookshelves. Forty-two more linear feet of space for my books to rest on between their bouts of breeding more books.

We’ll see how long it takes for this bookshelf to fill up.

Churchill and Books

Posted on November 10, 2010November 10, 2010 by The Book Roadie

“What shall I do with all my books? was the question; and the answer, “read them,” sobered the questioner. But if you cannot read them, at any rate handle them and, as it were, fondle them. Peer into them. Let them fall open where they will. Read on from the first sentence that arrests the eye. Then turn to another. Make a voyage of discovery, taking soundings of uncharted seas. Set them back on their shelves with your own hands. Arrange them on your own plan, so that if you do not know what is in them, you at least know where they are. If they cannot be your friends, let them at any rate be your acquaintances. If they cannot enter the circle of your life, do not deny them at least a nod of recognition.”

– Winston Churchill, “Hobbies” in Thoughts and Adventures

There’s an awful lot to like in this quote, which I found in A Gentle Madness: Bibliophiles, Bibliomanes, and the Eternal Passion for Books by Nicholas Basbanes (his books are must-reads for all bibliophiles), but I think my favorite is the first sentence. I get asked all the time by people who see my book collection whether I’ve read them all, whether I’m going to read them all, what I am going to do with them, why I have them.

It’s always kind of fun to reply that yes, the ones on the main shelves, I have read. All of them. Many more than once. Then I always point out my to-read shelves. That’s fun, too, watching people’s eyes widen in comprehension as they realize that I own more books I haven’t even read yet than they own books at all. With some of them, it’s more books than they’ve read in their lifetime.

Some folks just don’t seem to get the voracious appetite for reading that bibliophiles of my stripe tend to have. I’m always reading at least one book in my spare time, usually more. I have a stack next to my bed, and others scattered around my apartment, in my field bag, in my car. Every so often I go on a simplifying spree and try to get down to just one or two books at a time, but the number invariably climbs back up.

I suppose it’s a crazy concept for some folks, but I buy books in order to read them. As a voracious collector, I can kind of understand people who collect books they never read — it’s like collecting action figures and keeping them in their packaging — but it is so not my style.

The other thing I love about the quote up there is the way he talks about books — they’re an ocean, a group of people, items to be held and touched and opened so that the eye may fall upon the page. The ocean bit in particular strikes me, since I’m one of those people who falls into books the way you might dive off a cliff into the sea. If I’ve been reading long enough, getting me to stop reading and come back to regular life is a little like hauling a drowning person through the surf and doing CPR on the beach until they cough up all that water and sit up. I come up from books confused and bedraggled and tired — and wanting desperately to dive back in.

It’s kind of a masochistic thing, being a bibliophile. But we can’t help ourselves, any more than a rock’n’roll fan can help going to shows that leave her battered, with ringing ears and a huge smile.

30 Day Book Meme: Day 30

Posted on October 30, 2010October 23, 2010 by The Book Roadie

What book are you currently reading?

I am, as always, reading a bunch of books. One of them is the Luck in the Shadows series, by Lynn Flewelling. SO GOOD. It’s in the same setting as her top-notch trilogy about Queen Tamir II, but a couple hundred years later. It’s fascinating to see what’s changed, and to see how the events of the previous books affected the landscape and people in the newer ones. Awesome.

Wow, I made it to the end of the meme! Go me! This means my feed will get a bit quieter, but I have lots of things planned, so stay tuned!

30 Day Book Meme: Day 29

Posted on October 29, 2010October 23, 2010 by The Book Roadie

Saddest character death OR best/most satisfying character death (or both!)

Character death is a subject I have some strong opinions on, as anybody who’s heard me rant about Joss fucking Whedon can attest.

The example I always use of the right way to kill off a character is Boromir in The Lord of the Rings. To sum up: Boromir is gradually seduced by the Ring and attacks Frodo in an attempt to take it. Frodo escapes and Boromir is horrified to realize how he has betrayed the trust placed in him when he was made a part of the Fellowship. A bunch of orcs attack and he dies trying to save Merry and Pippin. He fights valiantly, taking many arrows. He speaks briefly to Aragorn one last time, and the two of them reconcile the tension between them (a vast over-simplification: Aragorn is the heir to the throne which would otherwise be Boromir’s).

So, Boromir’s death enables him to regain some of his lost honor and go out doing the right thing on all sides. It’s a necessary, cathartic death (his actions toward Frodo were appalling and unforgivable), which makes it satisfying even while one grieves the loss of a man who, while imperfect, was in many ways very good and honorable.

Good stuff.