Pages vs. Wages

Purchasing books has long been a compulsion of mine. Typically, though, the practice was limited by my income and relatively little access to a decent used bookstore. Between the boxes that have started flooding into the Salvation Army, Thursday specials at the Huntington Annex, and, the mother of them all, Amazon used-book sellers, my book buying has exploded.

Amazingly, this comes at a time when I have unprecedented access to free books, largely through castoff pile of books that don't get reviewed at work. As a consequence, my library has been growing by leaps and bounds, even though most new arrivals are either ratty copies of classics or clean, crisp volumes that I will glance at maybe once. So, my library will be full of crummy editions of what I do want to read and classy copies of what I don't. A lose-lose, I guess.

That, at least, is the charge that has been leveled at me by those in my immediate circle: family, friends, co-workers, and the best beloved herself. And, I admit, it's a charge hard to deny.

That being said, I defy you. All of you. All the naysayers, all those who chuckle "what a packrat," each and everyone who looks askance at my four paperback copies of Bleak House (I've read most of it, and written a rather astounding research paper on Mrs. Jellyby, thank you very much). I scoff at all of you. Go ahead, leave me, because my books certainly never will.

The most recent salvo from the would-be book burners comes from a family member who passed along this article from the WSJ Personal Journal. Tunku Varadarajan writes:

I was once told by an old graybeard (was he a teacher at school? an uncle in Madras? alas, I can't remember . . .) that a cultured man should have very few friends but very many books. I must have been a youngish mite at the time, for I feel that I've carried the imprint of those words for as long as I've been sentient.

As my friends--all 2 1/2 of them--will testify, I've remained true to the first part of the sage's dictum. And my wife, bless her--and bless, also, her fortitude--will leap to give evidence that I've not merely been faithful to its second half but have complied with its dictates in a manner that might easily be described as fervid. A veritable Katrina of books deluges the two places we call home, and a day seldom goes by without my slinking in the front door with even more of the darn things in the pockets of my trench coat.

Ah, a kindred spirit, I thought, which immediately aroused my fears. They were justified:

So imagine my consternation when, on having to pack up the contents of my office last week--I start a new job at the Journal, and must park myself in a new cubicle, with fewer shelves--I was faced with a devilish question: What to do with the books I'd accumulated there these last four years, books numbering, conservatively, well into four figures.

Tunku is forced (spoiler alert) to purge his books. Apparently, the kind soul that forwarded me this article intended to warn me of the dangers of clutching too tightly to every book that comes my way.

Happily, Tunku's fears are not my own. For though I never received the maxim the "graybeard" imparted to him, I've followed a version of it. Many books I own, and many more I will acquire soon, but few among these books are my friends. At the core of my collection lies a select group of works which I can't part with. Outside this inner sanctum circle all kinds of books about all kinds of subjects, with whom I might not part willingly, but without violent attachment.

Take, for instance, one of my weekend tasks. I've been lucky enough to come into possession of a pair of fascinating tomes: one profiling four centuries of Virginia history, the other seven generations of the Lee family. The two seem to complement each other from my cursory reading, but odds are long that I'll have a chance to do either justice. So, I plan to ship them off to an uncle in Virginia, whose home lies not far from the haunts of the Lee dynasty. He has an encyclopediac knowledge of the area and, I hope, would find much of interest and use in the two books.

Further, my library's new acquisitions, which went through many other hands before they sat on the castoff shelf, don't simply gather dust at my house. I've managed to delve into at least five this year alone, getting through three cover to cover. A stack of thin paperbacks from Osprey Publishing were a smash hit with my brothers. My sister snatched up a book of short passages on celebrated events in English history (the name of which escapes me) before I could look at it myself. And I've got two takers for P.G. O'Rourke's book as soon as I'm done pretending I'm going to review it for some publication.

I won't lie. A wall of books is an attractive sight. But better the books be read, and they are.