The People are what we wish we were and I hope someday become." a reviewer for Zenna Henderson's THE PEOPLE
"Your face is a book in which men may read strange things," paraphrased by Louey in GOODBYE, JOHNY THUNDERS by Tania Kindersley
Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow, it empties today of its strength.
Corrie Ten Boom
--
People think there's always somebody who is paid too much, and taxed too
little - and it's always somebody else.
--
"Life is hard...After all, it kills you."
Katharine Hepburn.
“"What else is life but always bidding farewell?"”
- Hanno
Undercover: Judging People by Their Books
I find ordinary, everyday folk fascinating, and love to know what they listen to, watch, eat, and especially read.
Books, and the books that people choose to read for pleasure, are an endless joy and fascination for me. One of my favourite things to do (occasionally surreptitiously but usually unabashedly) when I am in a new friend’s home for the first time is to peruse their bookshelves. Is it neat, orderly, and tidy? Does it consist largely of textbooks and career books? Is it stuffed to overflowing, books crammed here and there at various angles? Does he have rare and collectible books? Does she have a secret shelf of shame devoted to bad romance and old Sweet Valley High from her tween years? What’s on the nightstand? Which book looks to have been read the most?
It’s a joyful way to judge someone by the contents of their bookshelves, and I fear we’ll lose that, with e-readers becoming so prevalent. Sure, they have their benefits. E-readers make it feasible to carry many books at once, without breaking your back or bag. They’re tidy, efficient, and some technophiles love the look and feel of them. And as someone with mild hoarding tendencies, an e-reader is a tempting way to reduce clutter (though my entire being revolts at the idea of books as clutter).
But in 10 or five or even two years, when I enter a friend’s home for the first time, what might I find? Sure, most people will still have books. But many of their reading choices will be hidden away in the impersonal, pixelated depths of their reading device. And while I imagine it would be considered rude to pick up someone’s e-reader and start idly flicking through, it is perfectly acceptable to openly snoop by inching from one end of a shelf to the other, head cocked at an uncomfortable angle, glass of wine in hand. I love exclaiming when I find one of my favourites on their shelf. I love begging to borrow a book I’ve been dying to read for years. I love silently evaluating their choices and smiling smugly if I feel mine are better.
How can we weed out ill-advised love partners if their stacks of Tom Clancy, John Grisham and Dean Koontz aren’t on display? Should people be obliged to reveal it upfront if they indulge in Nora Roberts, Danielle Steel, Jackie Collins? How can we fall in love that much more quickly if we can’t see his amazing collection of noir and pulp in the hallway, or her extensive heap of Calvin & Hobbes? I imagine we’ll at least still be able to peruse each other’s cookbooks, since I can’t imagine a minestrone-splattered screen is good for an e-reader.
For me, books are part of my house, part of my decor, and part of who I am. When you come into my home (mind the clutter), I expect and welcome you to eye the shelves, laugh at some inclusions, ask about some inclusions.
Admire my few cherished collectible books, borrow, discuss, argue – and yes, even draw conclusions.
Don’t worry. I’ll do the same to you.
Groucho Marx said: "I find t.v very educating, whenever someone turns on a set, I go into the other room to read."
"When I get a little money I buy books; And if any is left I buy food and clothes"
Erasmus
"There's no friend as loyal as a book"-Ernest Hemingway
"What do ties matter, Jeeves, at a time like this?"
"There is no time, sir, at which ties do not matter."
P.G. Wodehouse
"The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page." - St. Augustine
To paraphrase Milan Kundera (THE UNBEARABLE LIGHTNESS OF BEING): "To sit with a dog on a hillside on a glorious afternoon is to be back in Eden, where doing nothing was not boring - it was peace."
"...and those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music" -- Nietzsche
If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went. Will Rogers
"There is nothing more gratifying than having a kindred spirit and working toward a goal. It was a time before we had to worry about our own future, so we could focus on worrying about the rest of the world. We could afford the luxury of asking, 'How can we mad the world a better place?' We weren't yet old enough or wise enough to reaize how
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