I sometimes thought my father thought he could't die while he still had books on his pending pile (a stab at immortality I seem to be replicating)... so, it was strangely touching to see Tom Gauld has had similar thoughts.
@bookstodon@ChrisMayLA6 This would be me. If I live to be as old as my father, I have 35 years to read all my unread books. I am not sure I have enough time….This would be one of the four walls.
@ChrisMayLA6@bookstodon I recently came across a really nice pov, that a book collection is like a carefully curated wine collection. You buy many books so you have the right one to read at the right time. Also, it supports authors
@jrbee@ChrisMayLA6@bookstodon Just remember that some books you lay down for the future may ultimately turn out to be the literary equivalent of corked!
@ChrisMayLA6@bookstodon
You don’t have to be all Eco about libraries to sympathise.
Not so long ago, if you were eager to fill up on Penguins, or recipes, or history, or a bunch of Haynes manuals, or what a friend was excited about, you bought it.
Your reach always exceeds your grasp, so you end up with a buffer pile to get round to when you have time, or might just need one day.
And who doesn’t want all those friends and connections and memories taking over the wall space?
@ChrisMayLA6@bookstodon Agreed. One of the few things that worries me about death is the books I've long wanted to read and never got round to. Every time I encounter a masterpiece or a writer new to me who bowls me over - John McGahern being the latest - I think how lucky I am to have lived long enough to read them.
@ChrisMayLA6@bookstodon On a related note, I read a couple of poems to my 93 year old mother each time I visit. She never was a reader, but startles me by quoting whole quatrains from her past. And yesterday's poems, one an absolute beauty by Louis MacNeice, were new to me, and she reacted vividly to them.
@davidpnice@ChrisMayLA6@bookstodon When I was a kid, my grandma described heaven as pearly gates and streets of gold as if that would awesome. That didn't interest me, I hoped I'd have access to every book written and all the new ones moving forward. I was maybe 9 or 10.
Ha ha, well access is good, but what we/you really need is infinite time for reading to digest & enjoy them all... or the (large?) portion that you might actually want to read
@ChrisMayLA6@davidpnice@bookstodon well, grandma did say it would be an eternity. :)
I figured the biggest problem would be dodging pesky relatives that grandma assured me would all be in heaven waiting.
That brings to mind the Twilight Zone episode about the man who welcomes the end of the world, of which he's the only survivor. Finally he's free from all the distractions, and can read for as long and as much as he likes. Then he breaks his glasses.
@riggbeck@ChrisMayLA6@ericatty@bookstodon Worth a bit of eye strain by holding the text up close. But I guess it's a metaphor. And no serious reader would welcome the end of the world...
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