glitterati

When I made the decision to move overseas, I also made the decision to get rid of my entire library — 1,500 books. Most were sold to a used bookstore, some donated to charity, others handed off to friends. Down to several hundred near the moving date, the gentleman who came over to pick up the shelves I was selling asked what I was doing with the giant stacks now lined up around my bare walls. ‘Do you want them’, I asked. He immediately picked up a stack and started loading up his car. My friend Charles and I sat gloomily as the man made trip after trip up and down my stairs. I skipped refilling my glass with vodka and just started drinking out of the bottle. ‘It’s the stories they contain, not the books themselves, right’, I asked. ‘Sure, kid. Can you top me off.’

I don’t miss the stories in Isak Dinesen’s Seven Gothic Tales. I can hop over to East of Eden bookstore and probably find a copy of the same book. But it wouldn’t have the same smell, it wouldn’t be a perfect 1960s Modern Library hardback edition, and it wouldn’t have my 2007 Dublin bus schedule jammed between the pages as a bookmark. I don’t miss the book, I miss *the book*. I hope it’s being read and loved right now, and my bus schedule replaced with a subway pass or a receipt for coffee and an almond croissant.

— Jessa Crispin in The Smart Set (via thebronzemedal) (via thoughtsdetained)

Posted September 24, 2009 at 1:09pm || home

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