I gave up buying books a few years ago when I realized
(1) how much they actually were
(2) how much space they actually took up
(3) how I could find them for free at the many Glasgow libraries I frequent...
etc..etc..
I have, over the years, in all aspects of my living, continued to run a self-editing program in the background. This more or less means that when a book comes in, one invariably goes out. This isn't exactly what happens, but it is more or less the protocol. Over the past two decades I have donated a shed-load of books to various Glasgow establishments, partly because I had already read them and they weren't worth reading again, and partly to free up space. Of course, despite having given up buying books, I still buy books! (on those rare occasions where I cannot find it in a library, and I convince myself I need to read it).
On certain occasions, I will actually read it in the bookshop instead of buying it. Waterstones in Sauchiehall Street is a pretty good shop for this kind of stuff. There is a good cafe in the basement, and, over the four floors, there are some pretty good books to be read. Normally, I buy a coffee, and then make like a cow, and start browsing... At least the philosophy section hasn't been relegated to the basement beside the toilets!
Yesterday, as I was chewing away, I came across this by Greenock-born W.S. Graham, for all those writers who wonder about the absurdities of publishing, and the joys of just writing for writing's sake:
What does it matter if the words
I choose, in the order I choose them in
Go out into a silence I know
Nothing about, there to be let
In and entertained, and charmed
Out of their master's orders?...
[from Approaches to How They Behave]
Many books should never be in print form at any rate. The amount of nonsense out there is remarkable. I'm very much with Kafka on this point where he says that if a book does not wake up some part of you then it ain't worth reading. Most of these books are simply soporific entertainment. And the result of carving out a career. There are few books in amongst them all that can lay the claim to truly 'waking up' the reader. Certainly, up there on the top floor, in the small philosophy and religion sections there are a few that can tease the sleeper awake but not many. Even the books here have been dumbed down and packaged to suit an altogether less discerning reader. But of course, I am confusing the idea of a 'book' with the idea of a 'product'. I should know better. I should know that the chances are not good of being knocked awake in a bookshop of this ilk. It's like a university where all the poets...
they start to sound alike
they hide behind the poem and they have
to publish more books for their
tenure and once they worry about the
number of books, there is no more poet.
[The Failure of the Poets, Red Hawk]
Many books should never be in print form at any rate. The amount of nonsense out there is remarkable. I'm very much with Kafka on this point where he says that if a book does not wake up some part of you then it ain't worth reading. Most of these books are simply soporific entertainment. And the result of carving out a career. There are few books in amongst them all that can lay the claim to truly 'waking up' the reader. Certainly, up there on the top floor, in the small philosophy and religion sections there are a few that can tease the sleeper awake but not many. Even the books here have been dumbed down and packaged to suit an altogether less discerning reader. But of course, I am confusing the idea of a 'book' with the idea of a 'product'. I should know better. I should know that the chances are not good of being knocked awake in a bookshop of this ilk. It's like a university where all the poets...
they start to sound alike
they hide behind the poem and they have
to publish more books for their
tenure and once they worry about the
number of books, there is no more poet.
[The Failure of the Poets, Red Hawk]
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