Weighing the Books

By Chrissine Rios, MA, Purdue University Global Writing Center

My home office-by-day/studio-at-heart is one of my favorite places for many reasons, and about 200 of them are books.

My Bookcase Before

My Bookcase Before

Some have literally saved my life; others have just stuck to my bones.  Each shelf holds a genre, and each genre holds a part of my story.  On my shelf of children’s classics, for instance, I have The Little Prince.  It was my mom’s when she was a girl, and folded inside is the book report I wrote on it in 7th grade; I can still remember crumpling up the rough drafts of lined paper, and there was a dozen.  Back then good writing had a lot to do with good hand writing, I thought, and I wanted mine to be good.

The Little Prince Book Report

The Little Prince Book Report

Another special shelf holds my reference books including Simon and Schuster’s International Dictionary: English/Spanish, Spanish/English, a 1,597-page hardcover that weighs a ton and a half.  I majored in Spanish in college, studied for a semester at the Universidad Veritas in Costa Rica, and for a year at the University of Puerto Rico—I still have my Antología de Textos Literarios from UPR and a soulful collection of postcolonial literature by Caribbean authors.  I bought the big dictionary when I was waist deep in Spanish classes.  I needed it for survival.  And in the eight times I’ve moved since finishing college, I’ve had to decide if I would again pack it up and take it with me, even though the only times I’ve cracked it open have been almost exactly those same eight times I moved, just to weigh my need for it.

I also have a paperback English/Spanish dictionary, a thick book as well but with the same words and not big and heavy.  And when I opened that one to weigh its importance, my initial thought was I don’t need this one if I keep the big one, but then I saw my mom’s name printed inside the cover and remembered how she kept up with her Spanish all those years I was studying it.  So my decision was made: The mammoth dictionary would go to Goodwill, and my mom’s paperback would stick with me.

In a blogging course I took a few years ago, a woman in my breakout group said she gave all of her books away, all of them.  She could no longer look at the stack looming on her nightstand.  She said she reads e-books now—no clutter, no guilt.  And she loves books.  She was finishing her now published novel at the time, which I read, reviewed, and gifted to my mother.  I loved it.  My shelves may be full and my nightstand too, but I have a living library.  Books come and go.  I don’t keep all I read or even read all I keep.  But there’s no way I could let go of my copy of Running with Scissors that Augusten Burroughs signed for me after his talk at the Florida Suncoast Writers’ Conference in 05.  That book was powerful.

Running With Scissors, Signed Copy

Running With Scissors, Signed Copy

Yet I read e-books too, and when Burroughs’s memoir Lust and Wonder came out earlier this year, I decided I would download it from Amazon.  His books have been filling up my memoir shelf for years, and that’s my favorite shelf! When it came to weighing their worth to me, they were heavy with great love, but also, just heavy, and for about a day, or at least an hour as I pulled those and about 40 more from my shelves to lighten my load, I considered donating every single one of my books to Goodwill or the local library.  I don’t “need” them, after all.  I could get most (but not all) as e-books; I could take pictures of the inscriptions.  Books are heavy to move and expensive to transport across multiple states as I will be doing very soon.

Good Will Books

Goodwill Books

But here’s the thing: I do need them.  I need them in the way a musician needs music and a painter needs paintings and a lover needs love.  Books are my reason for writing and loving language; they are my reward, my inspiration, and they have shaped the life I live, and in my work as a writing tutor and a writer, I use them all the time.  I’ve reopened a box a day it seems looking for one and then another.  It’s terribly inconvenient having them in boxes, but I must pack to move.  And where I’m going, I’ll make a new studio-office, and I’ll shelve my books on a new bookcase (since mine was too heavy to keep), and I will be home again.

Books Worth the Weight

Books Worth the Weight

 

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8 Responses

  1. This is a great post, Chrissine. From a fellow book lover who just bought another bookshelf to accommodate more books, I share your thoughts. My husband said to me as I placed books on the new bookshelf this weekend, “It’s like seeing old friends, huh.” I was unpacking books that had been stored since a move two years ago. I read e-books for some things. But, I still adore – revere other books. It is not just a collection – I refer to my books often. Thanks, Chrissine for sharing. I love hearing your voice and your passion in this post.

  2. catherinecski says:

    You come from a family that treasures their books. I have books my grandmother ( your great grandmother) gave to me when I was a girl and also books inscribed by my mother to me or those I had given to her and gotten back when she passed on. They have special meaning especially when you see those dates that are now long past.

    • Thanks for your comment! My educational path had such a winding route that it always seemed I found my love of language and books on my own; I even felt like a rebel in my pursuit. But it has been there all along and passed down to me. I’m teaching my son the love of reading too. He loves it on his own and thinks it’s his special gift, but you know and I know the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.

  3. Lori S-R says:

    You’re such an awesome writer and your handwriting has always been beautiful! Good luck on your new adventure!

  4. Beautiful, thanks I love books too. I like the real paper books I can’t read e-books I start but never finish. I have to feel the weight, underline, highlight and when I use a quote for my blog insert the date used next to it so I don’t use in again in the future. I hate to repeat myself even if it’s a great quote. I hope they never do away with “real” books in my life time…

    • Thank you for your reply! One of the funnest parts of packing up my books was finding old notes, business cards, and photos tucked between pages that I had forgotten were there but will stay where they are. They mark a page but also a time. Those pictures of my friends’ kids that came in Christmas cards? Bookmarks.

      That’s a great idea of yours, annotating the date of a quote taken. My old annotations have also helped me more than once when I was writing an academic article and trying to recall something I read back in grad school.

      Happy reading!

  1. October 5, 2016

    […] summer I wrote “Weighing the Books” while boxing up my household and home office in order to move it from North Carolina to […]

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