Soujin (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
psalm_onethirtyone) wrote2005-04-08 02:59 pm
psalm_onethirtyone) wrote2005-04-08 02:59 pm
"Someday I Pray My Fears Will Take Flight..."
Am here at the library presently.
I like to talk to the books I know. When I'm shelving books I've never read, sometimes I come across old ones that I've read before, or by authors I like, and I smile at them and touch their spines and covers and say hello. While I was shelving something by Bill Cosby, I went by the Agatha Christie section, and there was the same old row of shiny black leather covers that I'd read last year, so I brushed them all with my fingers. I knelt down to put something away in the D section and said hello to Arthur Conan Doyle and Charles Dickens. I don't even think about it; I just do it. Books are like people, but that sounds so trite. Maybe it would help if I said books were like my people. When I call any group of people 'my people', it means that they're special, that they're people I know. I like that.
When I find books I don't know that are out of place, I'm rescuing them. I'm supposed to shelve, but I also sort, and rearrange. I straighten shelves. When I do that, I talk to them also. I say Hello. You aren't meant to be here, poor thing. Just give me a moment, and I'll get you back where you belong. Just a moment.
Then I sort through, I find the spot the book belongs--often it's not just one; often it's a few. I apologise that they've been inconvenienced and had to undergo the discomfort of being shelved incorrectly. I hope that I've put them right in a proper way, and been properly respectful.
I read the children's books so regularly that when I get to put new books on the display rack, I've read them all. I know which ones I think are good, and I know how to make sure there aren't too many of one sort. I can confidently tell mothers with little children which picture books are best for what they want, which ones have more pictures, which ones are poems, which ones are best.
I can do that with a lot of the other books, too. When people check out books I know, I can say Oh, good choice! I've read this one. I think you'll like it. Have you read any of his (her) other books?
I can say Oh, wonderful! That one's so good and it doesn't get read often enough. Enjoy it. Have a lovely day.
I know my way around this library. I know where things are. I know where the books are. While I'm shelving, I pick them up and look through them, at my favourite illustrations, at my favourite passages. When I see news translations of old books, I get excited, I look for my favourite parts to see whether they're different. When books get discarded, it's terribly important that I get to look through them first and make sure nothing's going that special, that I can keep.
I know a lot of the authors, even the romance novel authors and food mystery authors, simply because I've shelved them so often. I know how to laugh at them. It's my special prerogative, and they don't mind, or they don't tell me they mind.
Welcome back, I say, when one comes back and I've shelved it often before. You're popular, aren't you? Maybe you're on reserve. Let's see.
I even know the non-fiction sections. I know Biographies, and I know Magazines, although I'm not very good with Reference yet. I don't shelve in Reference much, so I don't talk to it much.
I feel as though I were in the most magic, safe place in the world. I could live in a library, I think. I'd know where Jules Verne is and I'd know where Yeats is and I'd know where Jane Yolen and Alice McLerran are, and that would be most important. I could live on the biography of Virginia Woolf and books of Chris Van Allsburg and my guilty pleasure of murder mysteries. It would be wonderful. I would be living among my people. They would be people I knew.
I love the library.
On an entirely different note, I was shelving romance fiction and came across a book with the enticing title of Tall, Dark and Grumpy. It makes me think of Nemo. Possibly I will be tempted to read it on the sly, purely because of the title.
Because romance novel!Nemo would absolutely be tall, dark, and grumpy. And Aronnax would be a cute heroine.
I like to talk to the books I know. When I'm shelving books I've never read, sometimes I come across old ones that I've read before, or by authors I like, and I smile at them and touch their spines and covers and say hello. While I was shelving something by Bill Cosby, I went by the Agatha Christie section, and there was the same old row of shiny black leather covers that I'd read last year, so I brushed them all with my fingers. I knelt down to put something away in the D section and said hello to Arthur Conan Doyle and Charles Dickens. I don't even think about it; I just do it. Books are like people, but that sounds so trite. Maybe it would help if I said books were like my people. When I call any group of people 'my people', it means that they're special, that they're people I know. I like that.
When I find books I don't know that are out of place, I'm rescuing them. I'm supposed to shelve, but I also sort, and rearrange. I straighten shelves. When I do that, I talk to them also. I say Hello. You aren't meant to be here, poor thing. Just give me a moment, and I'll get you back where you belong. Just a moment.
Then I sort through, I find the spot the book belongs--often it's not just one; often it's a few. I apologise that they've been inconvenienced and had to undergo the discomfort of being shelved incorrectly. I hope that I've put them right in a proper way, and been properly respectful.
I read the children's books so regularly that when I get to put new books on the display rack, I've read them all. I know which ones I think are good, and I know how to make sure there aren't too many of one sort. I can confidently tell mothers with little children which picture books are best for what they want, which ones have more pictures, which ones are poems, which ones are best.
I can do that with a lot of the other books, too. When people check out books I know, I can say Oh, good choice! I've read this one. I think you'll like it. Have you read any of his (her) other books?
I can say Oh, wonderful! That one's so good and it doesn't get read often enough. Enjoy it. Have a lovely day.
I know my way around this library. I know where things are. I know where the books are. While I'm shelving, I pick them up and look through them, at my favourite illustrations, at my favourite passages. When I see news translations of old books, I get excited, I look for my favourite parts to see whether they're different. When books get discarded, it's terribly important that I get to look through them first and make sure nothing's going that special, that I can keep.
I know a lot of the authors, even the romance novel authors and food mystery authors, simply because I've shelved them so often. I know how to laugh at them. It's my special prerogative, and they don't mind, or they don't tell me they mind.
Welcome back, I say, when one comes back and I've shelved it often before. You're popular, aren't you? Maybe you're on reserve. Let's see.
I even know the non-fiction sections. I know Biographies, and I know Magazines, although I'm not very good with Reference yet. I don't shelve in Reference much, so I don't talk to it much.
I feel as though I were in the most magic, safe place in the world. I could live in a library, I think. I'd know where Jules Verne is and I'd know where Yeats is and I'd know where Jane Yolen and Alice McLerran are, and that would be most important. I could live on the biography of Virginia Woolf and books of Chris Van Allsburg and my guilty pleasure of murder mysteries. It would be wonderful. I would be living among my people. They would be people I knew.
I love the library.
On an entirely different note, I was shelving romance fiction and came across a book with the enticing title of Tall, Dark and Grumpy. It makes me think of Nemo. Possibly I will be tempted to read it on the sly, purely because of the title.
Because romance novel!Nemo would absolutely be tall, dark, and grumpy. And Aronnax would be a cute heroine.