Earlier in the year, a friend gave me a bookmark: “It’s Not Hoarding If It’s Books”. So impressed was I with that sentiment, that I bought a t-shirt flouting the same message. To my mother and grandmother the idea that a collection of books, not matter how large, could ever be construed as hoarding, would have been bizarre. A collection of books equalled a library, size was irrelevant.
I remember when my grandmother migrated from Rome to Australia. She was in her early nineties and had finally acknowledged that she could no longer look after herself. This was the seventies, and she had come by boat, not aeroplane. At the docks we waited and waited for grandmother to emerge from customs. It turned out that all her belongings, the bulk of which were her books, had been packed in recycled wooden boxes. Because of biosecurity, they could not enter Australia. Everything had to be unpacked and repacked.
But I digress. Is it hoarding if it’s books? Generally, there is much more leniency towards a house overflowing with books than one overflowing with shoes. Think Imelda Marcos and the flack she bore for her shoe collection. I’ve often wondered whether this is a remnant from the days when illiteracy was linked to poverty; books with education and comfort. Punch had a great cartoon: two obviously upper-class men looking at a bookshelf with three or four tablets leaning on it – “That’s a fine library you have there, Bertie.”
These meandering thoughts followed my failure earlier in the month to find a book which I had bought just a few days earlier. In the chaos that were my book piles, and the chaos that was my insomniac’s brain, I could no longer remember where I had put it. The more the book hid, the more that was the book I definitely wanted to read next; the more I searched, the more I began to doubt my personal ‘holy writ’ that “if it’s books, it’s not hoarding”; the more I looked, the less irritating became the frequent tactless question: “Have you read them all?” It also made me doubt my certainty that each book I bought, would of course be read.
That was my “Right Here, Right Now” “One Moment This Year” rolled into one. Hoarding is hoarding, I decided, and I would from that moment stop buying books. I would cull what I had and have a neat, immaculate, restrained library.
Pigs will of course fly. The next day I met a friend at Hyde’s for coffee and, needless to say, the devil made me look in Redb4’s window. The devil had also cunningly displayed a book which was on my “want to read” list. On a roll, it was the devil who forced me to buy three other books, which he insisted looked very interesting.
In my 30 years plus as a second-hand bookseller I have seen some amazing libraries. Two however hit me with fear. It was out and out hoarding. No matter how many people were invited to buy, or to help themselves to the books, the quantity never seemed to diminish. In one case the remnant books were eventually burnt in a Guy Fawkes type night; in the other case the books were simply taken to recycling. In both cases we were talking quality, but the reality was that the families had no other choice. There were just too many volumes. Many municipalities now have a recycling shop at the tip. Benalla does not.
I also suspect that Imelda would not have had this problem selling/gifting her shoe collection.
So, this is really my fear. What will happen to my library, and to Good Reading’s stock? Both include rare volumes, some bought for the shop, others inherited from my mother’s and grandmother’s libraries.
As this was supposed to be about hoarding, I will finish with a story told me by a friend. When she shifted from number 33 to number 39 Striling Street, she decided to move the smaller stuff herself. All day, as she moved from one house to the other, she was watched by a neighbour, a young Vietnamese child leaning over the fence. When her mother eventually summoned her in, the child called out:
“Lady, you got too much stuff.”
From the mouth of babes…..
Postscript: ‘After Imelda left Malacañang Palace, press reports worldwide took note of her lavish wardrobe, said to include 15 mink coats, 508 gowns, 888 handbags, and 3,000 pairs of shoes.”
Who would quibble over 4411 books? Proving that if its books, it’s not hoarding.
Delfina Manor
November 2024
I remember when my grandmother migrated from Rome to Australia. She was in her early nineties and had finally acknowledged that she could no longer look after herself. This was the seventies, and she had come by boat, not aeroplane. At the docks we waited and waited for grandmother to emerge from customs. It turned out that all her belongings, the bulk of which were her books, had been packed in recycled wooden boxes. Because of biosecurity, they could not enter Australia. Everything had to be unpacked and repacked.
But I digress. Is it hoarding if it’s books? Generally, there is much more leniency towards a house overflowing with books than one overflowing with shoes. Think Imelda Marcos and the flack she bore for her shoe collection. I’ve often wondered whether this is a remnant from the days when illiteracy was linked to poverty; books with education and comfort. Punch had a great cartoon: two obviously upper-class men looking at a bookshelf with three or four tablets leaning on it – “That’s a fine library you have there, Bertie.”
These meandering thoughts followed my failure earlier in the month to find a book which I had bought just a few days earlier. In the chaos that were my book piles, and the chaos that was my insomniac’s brain, I could no longer remember where I had put it. The more the book hid, the more that was the book I definitely wanted to read next; the more I searched, the more I began to doubt my personal ‘holy writ’ that “if it’s books, it’s not hoarding”; the more I looked, the less irritating became the frequent tactless question: “Have you read them all?” It also made me doubt my certainty that each book I bought, would of course be read.
That was my “Right Here, Right Now” “One Moment This Year” rolled into one. Hoarding is hoarding, I decided, and I would from that moment stop buying books. I would cull what I had and have a neat, immaculate, restrained library.
Pigs will of course fly. The next day I met a friend at Hyde’s for coffee and, needless to say, the devil made me look in Redb4’s window. The devil had also cunningly displayed a book which was on my “want to read” list. On a roll, it was the devil who forced me to buy three other books, which he insisted looked very interesting.
In my 30 years plus as a second-hand bookseller I have seen some amazing libraries. Two however hit me with fear. It was out and out hoarding. No matter how many people were invited to buy, or to help themselves to the books, the quantity never seemed to diminish. In one case the remnant books were eventually burnt in a Guy Fawkes type night; in the other case the books were simply taken to recycling. In both cases we were talking quality, but the reality was that the families had no other choice. There were just too many volumes. Many municipalities now have a recycling shop at the tip. Benalla does not.
I also suspect that Imelda would not have had this problem selling/gifting her shoe collection.
So, this is really my fear. What will happen to my library, and to Good Reading’s stock? Both include rare volumes, some bought for the shop, others inherited from my mother’s and grandmother’s libraries.
As this was supposed to be about hoarding, I will finish with a story told me by a friend. When she shifted from number 33 to number 39 Striling Street, she decided to move the smaller stuff herself. All day, as she moved from one house to the other, she was watched by a neighbour, a young Vietnamese child leaning over the fence. When her mother eventually summoned her in, the child called out:
“Lady, you got too much stuff.”
From the mouth of babes…..
Postscript: ‘After Imelda left Malacañang Palace, press reports worldwide took note of her lavish wardrobe, said to include 15 mink coats, 508 gowns, 888 handbags, and 3,000 pairs of shoes.”
Who would quibble over 4411 books? Proving that if its books, it’s not hoarding.
Delfina Manor
November 2024
RSS Feed
