Reading and re-reading
Oct. 4th, 2014 06:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
graculusIt will probably come as no surprise to anyone who knows me that I read a lot of books. I'm sure I used to read more books once than I do now, because in the late 1990's I discovered fanfic and wouldn't even like to think about how many millions of words of that I've devoured since then. But what I don't tend to do is re-read a lot.
I've been thinking about this, about my relationship with books as things, and how it is that I don't have shelves and shelves of books in my house despite my ongoing habit. And I realised it's probably because I have quite an ambivalent attitude towards most books, the books that I'm glad I have read (and quite possibly enjoyed, though 'enjoyed' isn't always the right word for some of them) but knew without a shadow of a doubt I would never want to read again. I have the same feeling with my DVD collection, which again is probably quite a bit smaller than many people I know in fandom, for exactly the same reason - once I have consumed the product, I have a good idea of the likelihood of ever wanting to do so again in the foreseeable future and the likelihood is usually much closer to zero than not.
Not that this hasn't changed over time. At one point, I had a whole set of the Narnia books and had re-read them on multiple occasions; now just the thought of the time and mental space I spent on them makes me break out in metaphorical hives for so many reasons. So they went, while other stuff remains, though there is always the possibility that other things too may follow Aslan and co. into the charity shop donation bag.
It probably doesn't help that I'm a completist, in that I need to read a series from book 1 and have been stung too many times by gaps between books or trilogies that were never completed. Still, there are folks whose new stuff (James Lee Burke comes first to mind) I will seek out avidly from the library because I want to read them but know I will never go back to previous books in those series, regardless of their quality. Ebooks are difficult for me too, because of the impermanence of them - if they turn out to be something I think I'm going to want to keep, I'd much rather have the dead tree version to hand, if not both...
And I've started buying books more, again, regardless of all of the above. Because right now it feels like there's more out there I'm going to want to read and re-read, though I guess only time will tell whether that's true or not.
I've been thinking about this, about my relationship with books as things, and how it is that I don't have shelves and shelves of books in my house despite my ongoing habit. And I realised it's probably because I have quite an ambivalent attitude towards most books, the books that I'm glad I have read (and quite possibly enjoyed, though 'enjoyed' isn't always the right word for some of them) but knew without a shadow of a doubt I would never want to read again. I have the same feeling with my DVD collection, which again is probably quite a bit smaller than many people I know in fandom, for exactly the same reason - once I have consumed the product, I have a good idea of the likelihood of ever wanting to do so again in the foreseeable future and the likelihood is usually much closer to zero than not.
Not that this hasn't changed over time. At one point, I had a whole set of the Narnia books and had re-read them on multiple occasions; now just the thought of the time and mental space I spent on them makes me break out in metaphorical hives for so many reasons. So they went, while other stuff remains, though there is always the possibility that other things too may follow Aslan and co. into the charity shop donation bag.
It probably doesn't help that I'm a completist, in that I need to read a series from book 1 and have been stung too many times by gaps between books or trilogies that were never completed. Still, there are folks whose new stuff (James Lee Burke comes first to mind) I will seek out avidly from the library because I want to read them but know I will never go back to previous books in those series, regardless of their quality. Ebooks are difficult for me too, because of the impermanence of them - if they turn out to be something I think I'm going to want to keep, I'd much rather have the dead tree version to hand, if not both...
And I've started buying books more, again, regardless of all of the above. Because right now it feels like there's more out there I'm going to want to read and re-read, though I guess only time will tell whether that's true or not.
