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Tuesday, 30 June 2009
You May Remove the Cause but Not the Symptoms
 by Liraz Taler (July 2009) As a library owner it often happens that I stand baffled in front of the long rows of colorful spines and wonder. First, I feel like the people who pick at their overcrowded closets and exclaim that they have nothing to wear. This is far from the truth, as, like other bibliophiles, I keep buying books at a rate that exceeds my reading speed limit in any given time. Then, when I look at all those books pressed tightly together, mounting horizonically and vertically in double lines, I feel a slight (ok, a strong) tingle of shame. I wonder what makes me different from any other collector. In some dark moments, I rebuke myself that I am no different from someone who collects vintage key holders. Is the passion I have for this library contained within itself, for the reading itself; the great ideas, the language, the vast escapist landscape, or is it just gluttony combined with covetousness, disguised and excused as an intellectual front? more>>> Posted on 06/30/2009 5:56 PM by NER
Comments
1 Jul 2009
 A.B.
this must be one of the most rewording articles I had ever read I - myself- have a vast music collection I feel very much the same about and had also shared the heart aches of losing an out of print album to the random borrower -or just as bad- offering a certain friend the introduction into a world of sounds I'm certain would be admired -only to be shot down. we -as obsessive collectors- are not as the keychain or porcelain plate collectors the intellectual / artistic / spiritual -enlightenment offered to us by our *obsessions* serves to separate us from the random OCD hobnobs! so I say-hooray ! and kudos! may your collection ever grow and expand ! 11 Jul 2009
hersh
A good and humorous read on a topic which is really serious. I know what I'm talking about. It took me ages to find someone who proved worthwhile to move in with me and my books, honouring them as those parts of my personality that are, have been and will be (all the while surpressing the urge to smile on my vast collection of puberty-driven buys which, I admit, include Hesse). In return, he came with even more books which may not even be touched. Lending books? Oh, no! But feel free to note author and title or sit down and start reading. |