{"id":571,"date":"2004-04-18T12:21:11","date_gmt":"2004-04-18T12:21:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.john-howe.com\/blog\/?p=571"},"modified":"2020-09-25T08:39:58","modified_gmt":"2020-09-25T07:39:58","slug":"my-books","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.john-howe.com\/blog\/my-books\/","title":{"rendered":"My Books"},"content":{"rendered":"

Or Thoughts in Front of a Bookshelf<\/h4>\n

I like my books.<\/p>\n

They aren\u2019t particular about the company they keep. The big ones don\u2019t look down on the small ones. The oversize ones recline gracefully, like some ancient staute of Buddha, when the shelf hasn\u2019t enough headroom.
\nThey are a heterogeneous lot. Some look like tramps, all scuffed and rough from the road, other are dressed as if for the opera, shining jackets and impeccable silhouettes, but they all stick together.
\nMy books are cordial. Even complete series don\u2019t frown on an intruder in their midst.
\nMy books are a stoic lot too. Although very few are on the military subjects, they know how to maintain formation, keep a stiff spine and toe the edge of the shelf.
\nMy books are eager to share all they have. Here it all is, they say, I\u2019m an open book, take me, read me, bookmark me, or leave me to gather dust, it\u2019s all right I don\u2019t mind. Nor are they jealous of one another. No whispering on the shelves – read me read me, you\u2019ve read that one twice already.
\nMy books are patient and long-suffering. Some wait for years in boxes in the attic, but not a trace of bitterness shows when they find their way to bookshelves again.
\nMy books never get exasperated with me when I don\u2019t understand. They\u2019re happy to run over it again, as many times as I need.
\nAnd if I forget my page, they never scold me.<\/p>\n

In a society of so many books full of such wonderful wisdom and wit, isn\u2019t it a shame we didn\u2019t think to keep a little more on hand for ourselves?<\/p>\n

NUTRITIOUS READING<\/p>\n

The other day, during a brief and filling pilgrimage to that twin-arch\u00e8d temple of cholestoral, on the platter was an ad for the MacDonald\u2019s nutritional guidebook, destined for kids, to help them acquire proper eating habits. Uh, hold on, isn\u2019t something fundamentally wrong here? This is like wolves editing a \u201cCompleat Guide to Nutritious Grazing\u201d for sheep. (So I rushed home to re-read \u201cFast Food Nation\u201d (by Eric Schlosser\/Penguin) as quick as I could to burn off those extra carbs.)<\/p>\n

RESERVATIONS<\/p>\n

Attempted, the other day, to get a couple of books from the university library here in Neuch\u00e2tel.
\nAlas, the only books that really interest me (my tastes have remained unchanged since infancy, I far prefer books with pictures*) are in the Art History section, and these are not allowed out.
\nSo here we go again\u2026 already I must mail order art materials, buy most of my books over the net, now I have to rely on other means to borrow books\u2026
\nBy the way, books are etymologically intriguing – ever notice that we borrow books from a library and not a \u201cbookery\u201d? (Sorry, focus, John, focus\u2026)
\nI ran into this problem in the past, and was asked to prove I was doing \u201cserious\u201d work in order to get an exception. The profession of illustrator was not judged to be serious enough. Not SERIOUS enough? \u201cYou cretinous numbskull!\u201d I yelled, \u201cwhat do you mean not SERIOUS?!? I studied three arduous years to get my useless diploma; I\u2019ll bet your parents read you phone books and dictionaries when you were a kid!\u201d I didn\u2019t actually say that. I probably said something shamefully timorous like \u201cThank you for your time kind and serious sir, for deigning to tell me I might as well get a job serving at McDonalds.\u201d No, it\u2019s unlikely I said that either. I probably mumbled something unintelligible and hung up (softly) and went off to mope in a corner.
\nHad we run into similar reticence in Wellington while designing the movies, Middle-Earth would have been a rather bare place indeed\u2026<\/p>\n

(Sorry about that, I mean why could anybody but me care less what books I can take out or not, but I am sorely vexed. So vexed in fact that I just ordered them over the net at just over one-half the price they would be at the local bookshop and in just under one-quarter the time\u2026 )<\/p>\n

* This sets me up with no end of problems in those libraries where you have to request books via a card catalogue. How the devil am I supposed to know if the book is any good until I\u2019ve seen the pictures? I get more dirty looks than my share in bookshops too. How am I supposed to know if I want to buy it until I can see inside? \u201cShrink\u201d wrap must refer to the feeling I get when I ask the exasperated seller to unwrap yet another book\u2026<\/p>\n

ON THE DRAWING BOARD<\/p>\n

Speaking of books\u2026 that\u2019s what I am up to now.
\n\u201cThe Abandoned City\u201d is by the French author Claude Cl\u00e9ment<\/a>. I started it ages and ages ago, and then somehow got sidetracked in a film project and am now back, determined this time to finish it.
\nIt\u2019ll be published this autumn.
\nJUST READ<\/p>\n

Sometimes panic bookshopping in airports can yield pleasant surprises. Picked up \u201cThe Well of Lost Plots\u201d by Jasper Fforde (no, I didn\u2019t misspell that, it has two \u201cf”s). And shortly afterwords, \u201cThe Eyre Affair\u201d and \u201cLost in a Good Book\u201d, the first two in what must be by now a series of sorts. Anyone who is either brave or foolhardy enough to call his heroine Thursday Next DESERVES to be read.
\nGETTING GANDALF<\/p>\n

Oscar will be coming Sunday to bring Gandalf. Watch this space!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Or Thoughts in Front of a Bookshelf I like my books. They aren\u2019t particular about the company they keep. The big ones don\u2019t look down on the small ones. The oversize ones recline gracefully, like some ancient staute of Buddha, when the shelf hasn\u2019t enough headroom. They are a heterogeneous lot. Some look like tramps, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[92,22,23,20,53,18,19],"class_list":["post-571","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chronicles","tag-books","tag-gandalf","tag-middle-earth","tag-new-zealand","tag-oscar-nilsson","tag-tolkien","tag-wellington"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1PY8Y-9d","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.john-howe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/571","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.john-howe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.john-howe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.john-howe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.john-howe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=571"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.john-howe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/571\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.john-howe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=571"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.john-howe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=571"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.john-howe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=571"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}