I am Everyman
I am hooked on something new. My latest craze is collecting books. They aren’t rare, or unique, and most of the titles are familiar.
My latest thing has to do with buying the Everyman’s Library (Cloth) editions of classics put out by Knopf. They are just exquisite.
They all come in different colors, but always with the gilded edges on the pages, a built-on cloth bookmark. And, I actually had more of them than I thought, but not as many as I now desire. Many of the Nabokov hardcovers I owned were from this series, although I left the ugly paper covers on them previously, which they use to give them better spine-appeal and descriptions/reviews in stores. But no longer, all the paper covers are in the trash, and a new shelf on my bookcase is dedicated to my new collection.
I recently sold a lot of books to a local used bookstore, and just spent all my credit there getting nearly all of the titles they had from this series. Some good stuff (Austen, Balzac, Bronte, Joyce, Twain, etc.) combined with many I had (Nabokov, Wilde, Orwell, Flaubert) to form the beginning of a good collection.
Of course, the key thing is that I don’t want this to be for show. I want to know all of these books, and my recent boredom with seemingly everything Hollywood puts out put me in a good position to just shift my focus to reading.
With the edit starting on my book, it is good to get back into a routine of reading things that really deliver. I am such a junk food person when it still comes to books and TV stuff. Thankfully, I cut it out of my diet, but not when it comes to more cerebral intake.
It is just part of consumer culture. It will take me days, possibly weeks to finish Dicken’s Bleak House, which I am now starting as the second book for my Nabokov MFA. But, without fail, it will be so rewarding if past experience is any guide. I just need to get over my need for immediate gratification.
The Everyman’s Library (Cloth) books (I denote cloth, as you can also get (Paper) versions of these same titles from this same series) are all compact, with very readable fonts, and excellent craftsmanship. It just seems to lend itself to the mood of reading something that has stood the test of time so much more than the crappy paperbacks you can get of the same titles so much cheaper (although most of these books only go for about $13 NEW on Amazon, some even cheaper).
I’m not sure why, but their presence has somehow made a new wave of books on my shelves seem… irrelevant. Certain titles I kept now seem unlikely to ever get their spine cracked again, and are probably headed for the used store.
Similar to what I have successfully done with my kitchen, why keep junk in the house if you don’t want to consume it?
