When we retired years four years ago we found ourselves living in a house full of stuff that we had acquired over decades which we had little need for, so we decided to de-clutter. In a flurry of visits to the tip and various charity shops out went old work clothes, antique consumer electricals, garage junk, the kids toys, old paperwork - financial, scholarly and sentimental, broken tools, frayed linen, venerable camping gear. We even sold the 200 plus vinyl albums, so prized in our youth, but now stored in the loft for so long that we did not bother to replace the turntable when it decided some years ago that rotation was optional and its future was secure in a new role as a much loved vintage ornament. It went too.
In a sense, what is more interesting is what we could not bring ourselves to throw out. Where did the unspoken border of our sentimentality lie? The family photograph albums remained untouched, which is understandable. Less explicable is how we seemed unable to pass on any books, apart from the children's pictures books, and even those proved difficult; every Shirley Hughes, Jan Pienkowski, every picture book by the Ahlbergs, each one was placed in the charity shop box with a pang of nostalgia.
That left the contents of six tall pale beech Ikea Billy book shelves and the smaller 'overs-spill' shelves in the hallway, on the landing and the wall shelving in each of our children's bedrooms. We seemed unable to divest ourselves of even a single volume. One drizzly afternoon I decided to work out how many books we owned. I was not so OCD as to count each one. Instead I worked out the average number of volumes per shelf and counted the shelves. I estimate that we have about 1200 books. Hardly a library, but reading one a week it would still take me over 22 years to read every one.
It's an eclectic collection reflecting the differing tastes and experiences of each of us. Several hundred novels form the bulk of the collection. Gill is an avid reader and consumes with relish all kinds of novels other than the trashy. Terry Pratchett rubs shoulders with Ken Follett, Jane Austen with Tim Moore: Danielle Steele and Jilly Cooper are conspicuous in their absence, though James Clavell and Stephen King do put in guest appearances. Literary propriety is re-established by a clutch of books of post-modern British fiction. These we have on permanent loan from Sarah, our elder daughter, relics from her time as a student of comparative literature at Warwick and Bristol.
It's an eclectic collection reflecting the differing tastes and experiences of each of us. Several hundred novels form the bulk of the collection. Gill is an avid reader and consumes with relish all kinds of novels other than the trashy. Terry Pratchett rubs shoulders with Ken Follett, Jane Austen with Tim Moore: Danielle Steele and Jilly Cooper are conspicuous in their absence, though James Clavell and Stephen King do put in guest appearances. Literary propriety is re-established by a clutch of books of post-modern British fiction. These we have on permanent loan from Sarah, our elder daughter, relics from her time as a student of comparative literature at Warwick and Bristol.
The books on cookery and gardening reflect Gill's interests. Our many
guides and travel books are a result of our mutual enthusiasm for leaving the
country for sunnier and more civilised climes at every opportunity.
The five shelves of poetry is my doing, a somewhat random mix of the famous, the obscure, the contemporary and the ancient. The slim volumes of fellow poets who I have corresponded with on-line are my among my most treasured things. Aside from these, my contribution adds art books, unappetising tomes on critical theory - a legacy of the MA in humanities I studied in 2014; a scattering of books on education and research methods - leftovers of the M Ed I never completed; and a variety of other stuff by Rebecca Solnit, Paul Theroux, Alain de Bothan, Jonathan Meade, Owen Hathersley, Mary Beard, Bettany Hughes... a hotchpotch reflecting passing interests over the years.
Our offspring contribute too, each in a unique way. None of them, despite being grown-up and independent seems to have the room to store their respective mini-libraries themselves. From Matthew we have a clutch of academic history books, a range of political biographies, mainly Labour figures from the latter half of last century, and a few novels,- Le Carre and J G Ballard predominate. There is also an erudite tome concerning the development of formations and tactics in football. Sarah's bookshelves are the most focused consisting almost exclusively of books relating to English literature, the texts themselves, anthologies of critical essays and weighty volumes covering particular periods such as Romanticism or Victorian Poetry.
Laura prefers images to texts, so her bedroom shelves are packed with Japanese manga and graphic novels. As well as that there are scores of anime DVDs. Add Matthew's film collection and the family library mushrooms. Should these be included too? Postmodern theorists have a penchant for declaring everything a text from urban culture to an Arcadian landscape, so really the films should be included too.
Since we seem utterly unable to move the books on, I have decided to entertain myself by attempting to read one book a week from the collection concentrating on subjects, genres and authors chosen by other family members. Hopefully it will expand my horizons a little. To assist the process I thought it might be interesting to make a few notes as an aide memoire. My 'memoire' needs all the aid it can get these days.
So which one first?
The five shelves of poetry is my doing, a somewhat random mix of the famous, the obscure, the contemporary and the ancient. The slim volumes of fellow poets who I have corresponded with on-line are my among my most treasured things. Aside from these, my contribution adds art books, unappetising tomes on critical theory - a legacy of the MA in humanities I studied in 2014; a scattering of books on education and research methods - leftovers of the M Ed I never completed; and a variety of other stuff by Rebecca Solnit, Paul Theroux, Alain de Bothan, Jonathan Meade, Owen Hathersley, Mary Beard, Bettany Hughes... a hotchpotch reflecting passing interests over the years.
Our offspring contribute too, each in a unique way. None of them, despite being grown-up and independent seems to have the room to store their respective mini-libraries themselves. From Matthew we have a clutch of academic history books, a range of political biographies, mainly Labour figures from the latter half of last century, and a few novels,- Le Carre and J G Ballard predominate. There is also an erudite tome concerning the development of formations and tactics in football. Sarah's bookshelves are the most focused consisting almost exclusively of books relating to English literature, the texts themselves, anthologies of critical essays and weighty volumes covering particular periods such as Romanticism or Victorian Poetry.
Laura prefers images to texts, so her bedroom shelves are packed with Japanese manga and graphic novels. As well as that there are scores of anime DVDs. Add Matthew's film collection and the family library mushrooms. Should these be included too? Postmodern theorists have a penchant for declaring everything a text from urban culture to an Arcadian landscape, so really the films should be included too.
Since we seem utterly unable to move the books on, I have decided to entertain myself by attempting to read one book a week from the collection concentrating on subjects, genres and authors chosen by other family members. Hopefully it will expand my horizons a little. To assist the process I thought it might be interesting to make a few notes as an aide memoire. My 'memoire' needs all the aid it can get these days.
So which one first?
