On the Bookshelf: Clearing the Clutter

I mentioned in my last post that one of my goals for the year is to cut back on clutter.  One very emotional way I did that was to get rid of a box stuffed full of books.  My dear friend was able to help me pack them up this summer in preparation for the eventual day that I would take them to the used book store; two weeks ago, I finally got up the nerve to do it.

It was hard.

I felt like I was giving away part of my childhood.  Many of the books I had had for years upon years (okay, so that may be a little bit of an exaggeration, considering my relatively young age), and some of them were editions of Black Beauty, which I collected as a child.  Seeing someone else pawing through my books and putting a price on the heads of my old friends was difficult.

It was made easier, though, by my leaving the book store with some new friends, including some more Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys, and Tom Swift books, The Manchurian Candidate by Richard Condon, Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and Ten Years After by Alexandre Dumas.  I think I parted with about 35 books over the course of two days and came home with 13.  I still have credit left at one store and look forward to using it, when I have a chance, to find more books to make a part of my adulthood.  Besides, even if I have physically given away books that have been on my shelf for years, I don't have to lose the memory of them.  It's just time to make room on the shelf for a new phase of my life.

On the Bookshelf: Bleak House

The book currently in the spotlight, and actually off the shelf (on a chair beside it, to be precise) is Bleak House by Charles Dickens.  It's the very first Dickens book I've ever read, and while I was warned that Dickens is rather, well, bleak, I'm enjoying it mightily.  It's a novel about a will dispute and the lives of the people involved, and includes love, murder, friendship, and intrigue.  It also contains a lot of ridiculousness, which lightens it up immensely.  In fact, there have been several parts that made me laugh out loud.

I find the characters delightfully well-developed, including the more minor characters, and the plot moves along nicely, albeit slowly.  The story itself changes point of view frequently, but each view is easy to differentiate and the changes are easy to follow.

I can't say how it's going to end, not being there yet, and I wouldn't anyway.  However, if you're into Dickens and long books (my edition is just shy of 900 pages), I highly recommend picking it up and giving it a try.

On the Bookshelf

I spent a wonderful day and a half this week with Jessica of In a London Fog, playing Boggle and Scrabble, drinking tea, and having an extensive catch-up time, as well as hauling my kids back and forth to day camp and swimming lessons.  This morning we managed to squeeze in a quick trip with the little boys to Renaissance Books in New West, where we both added to our book collections.  I got four books:

Growing up, I loved reading "The Adventures of Lightfoot the Deer" by Thornton W. Burgess.  Some years later I came by a copy of "The Adventures of Sammy Jay".  Both are paperback and not in the best of condition, but at ten years old, I didn't much care.  A few years ago I was in Campbell River and found a whole selection of Burgess's books.  Only "Chatterer the Red Squirrel" had the dust jacket, so I picked that one up for 4.95$.  A little pricier than I like to pay, but, well, it was only one, and it's part of a series I like and have already started, and, and, and...

Anyway, today I added "Danny Meadow Mouse" and "Reddy Fox" to the collection.  They have the same cover as "Chatterer" but no dust jackets, and were 3.95$ a piece.  Unfortunately the price of the books with covers was beyond my budget.  Also unfortunate is the fact that they don't fit on my bookshelf.  I guess that if anyone has a shelf to be rid of, I'm in the market.

"The Mystery of the Bamboo Bird" is a Dana Girls Mystery from 1960, written by the incredibly long-lived Carolyn Keene of Nancy Drew fame.  The Dana Girls series is roughly on par with the Nancy Drew series, although not nearly as well-known.  It shares the same exciting adventures, kidnappings, and close calls, and of course, the bitter and/or remorseful revelations of the usually hardened thieves to the youthful detectives.  Fine literature it is not, but it's great for a quick read when I'm looking for something to make me smile (or smirk, as the case may be).

 

An image from the cover of "The Mystery of the Bamboo Bird" by Carolyn Keene

Last but not least, the red book is an undated copy of "The Pilgrim's Progress" by John Bunyan.  It's in a little bit of rough shape -- worn at the bottom of the spine, with a few pages fallen out (but still tucked in where they ought to be) -- but it has character and is a book I've long wanted to read.  It also only cost 2.86$.  I don't expect that it's older than the '40s, but it would be pleasing if it were.

 

The cover of "The Pilgrim's Progress" by John Bunyan

 That's the shelf for now, my friends.  Check in another day for more bookish delights!