I’ve talked before about my views on books and reading, both as a language learner and as a native speaker. You know how much I enjoy going back to re-read my old friends, the pleasure of finding new and exciting elements that had previously passed me by.
I’ll even sometimes do it with books I didn’t particularly enjoy the first time – I guess I’m hoping to find some redeeming feature that will prove my original assessment wrong. And you never know when something on your bookshelf is going to come in handy as a teaching aid. That’s why I can’t agree with the Guardian blog earlier this week, which talks about how having our own personal library is a luxury of space that we can no longer afford. There are various bits of furniture that I would give up before my books (in fact, I have, more than once) and the availability of bookcase-space is one of the key factors when I’m house-hunting. So I’ll hang on to my books whether I’ve read them or not, thank you very much, and one day I will get through Love in the Time of Cholera, in Spanish!
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Agreed. In fact, I currently forego the “luxury” of a fully functioning door in favour of three, 4ft high piles of books behind it, and am sticking out the cold without heating in my living room as the storage heater makes for such a handy bookshelf!
Someone should really invent furniture with built in shelving for excess novels. Sofas with drawers built into the base, for example, and coffee tables whose undersides incorporate handy pull-out book spaces. I’d invest!
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I can think of many luxuries I would give up before books. And piles of them can be so useful – a gym providing exercise opportunities daily – just climbing the stacks; great winter insulation when placed near doors and windows and they are the cheapest way to travel – you need only open a book from the stack to find yourself in a new novel destination surrounded by interesting characters.
It’s great to see I’m not alone!
I can’t agree more!!! Long life to real books! And the pleasure of spending time in lovely bookshops!!
Oho! Someone needs to consult a dictionary for the difference between ‘forego’ and ‘forgo’. Well, if you can’t be pedantic on a dictionary’s blog, where can you?