The sun is high in the sky. Their substance is long; but the shadows are short, and have a life of their own.Another purge of books today. The books I hung on to sometimes for sentimental reasons, sometimes in the hope that one day I might read them or at least find something useful in them, have been devalued by the presence of a Kindle eReader in the house. So accustomed am I becoming to homing into one of a number of books I am reading, that the lifelong addiction to storing anything between covers and in print on shelves is beginning to weaken. Of course there are old friend, hard-covers, even some venerable paperbacks to enjoy looking at and to take down from the shelf to caress. It is not that I do not love books any longer, rather that I value them in a different, more judicious manner.
As I walk up the hill, I notice a sparrows descending on out hedge like fans on a pop concert. Sparrows, they say, have vanished from London, but not at least, I am happy to say, from Tunbridge Wells.
5 comments:
Books - or rather, their spines - have one benefit ebooks cannot match. Glance at a shelf-ful (Bit worried about the spelling, here) and a dozen memories are triggered. A valuable aide memoire for titles not of the first rank which might otherwise risk being forgotten. But is the reverse of this experience also useful? See a spine, know you've read the book, and yet be incapable of recalling a single detail. Might this be a procedure to help you ensure that the next cull is - as the present government would have it - fair?
I am enjoying your series of upside down figures and shadows. That slight disorientation makes one look more than once.
What do you do with the purged books? I find there are not enough secondhand books shops willing to take any numbers.
Loving your feet and shadow photos.
Several of my books are about to have
e-book editions justifying my growing
interest in an electronic reader.
Also learning to draw and paint on my computer, a requirement for the profession these days. Missing the feel of the pencil and brush on fine paper.
The principle embodied in the phrase, much disliked by Heidi, "it might come in useful", which applies to objects - bits of string, screws, boxes, etc - also applies to books. You might want to read them one day. Yes, you're right: you do run the risk of depriving yourself of the pleasure of browsing in your library. It's a risk I am prepared to take at the moment. And one which I am bound to regret sooner or later.
M-L There are two bookshops in walking distance. One will even buy the books which you discard. The other is a charity shop. I have now taken to donating books to the proper bookshop, if they are not worth a lot on the market, because the charity shop puts such absurd prices on the books its sells, and which it pays nothing for.
CC I'm glad you like the feet and shadows series. They are still sometimes taking me by surprise. Mind you standing on your head to take the photographs in the first place is not easy!
I am drawn, as I've hinted, to these shadow photos. They stir in me a sense of wonder and discovery. Prior to your series, I doubt I've ever given shadows much attention, but through your pictures, they have taken on an importance and a life I never imagined them to have.
Gives new meaning (to me, anyway) to the expression, "our shadow selves."
I hope you will post more of them, provided, of course, that your neck holds out.
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