Book shelves series #30, thirtieth Sunday of 2012
See a full length shot of this book shelf (or don’t).
Lots of publication series editions here, including this batch of Melville House Art of the Contemporary Novella:
I reviewed most of these and they’re all very good—especially Sandokan.
Some ratty ratty Penguin Classics that I procured from various institutions I won’t name here. The Mallory was a particular obsession for a few years:
The Rousseau Coloring Book was a gift from a friend to our daughter, but I stole it and put it up here.
I reviewed all of Picador’s BIG IDEAS // small books series; I actually got a new one, Privacy, in the mail the other day. Violence and Humiliation are particularly good.
Next to those: various World of Art series books, most of them my wife’s. (Bonus points if you guess mine correctly):
I have no idea why these books are grouped here like this; I’m guessing they were all in the same box when we moved. I know we have multiple copies of several of these:
There’s a basket with a Klee book and some mini umbrellas and other stuff, not pictured, and then this lot on the end, including to “Introducing” books that are remainders from my freshman year of college; they are terrible and I should get rid of them. I stole this edition of The Stranger from my high school in the 10th or 11th grade. The Chronicles of Narnia box set was a gift from my aunt when I was like seven or eight:
Book shelves series #29, twenty-ninth Sunday of 2012
Lots of hardbacks on this long, long shelf. The Vonneguts above were particularly important to me when I was young. They were my father’s. I read them surreptitiously for years and then outright appropriated them at some point. The matching Dodd, Mead hardbacks were rescued from a school I worked at for years. My wife made the vase that serves as a bookend. The copy of Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell that doesn’t quite fit in the frame remains unread.
The BFG: a classic. I reviewed Wabi Sabi. Next to the Crumb:
I found Holidays in a box of free books in a library lobby. Love it. Here’s this week’s schedule of holidays:
One of my favorite books ever is Mitsou, a book that Balthus did when he was like 10 or 12 or something:
It’s about a young boy who gets a cat and loves the cat and then loses the cat. It’s heartbreaking. Image:
And next to this one:
Shelf’s end:
Book shelves series #28, twenty-eighth Sunday of 2012
Last month, or maybe the month before last, I forget, an anonymous reader accused me of not putting as much into these posts as I used to, which may or may not be true.
But I’m exhausted today—I’ve been out of town for the past week, enjoying a beach vacation with family and friends &c., and yeah, I’m fragged. Got home late late last night, had to clean up, mow the lawn, all that snazz. (The blog has been on autopilot but I’ll try to write up some original content for next week—maybe a review of Moonrise Kingdom. We’ll see).
Anyway, this Sunday finds us in a new room, the converted garage of my 1956 ranch-style home, a room we use as a family room. I’ll look at each shelf pictured above individually and remark on a few books (there’s some good stuff in there), but I’m just too tired. Sorry the pic is so blurry. Feel free to send me a newer iPhone.
There are two book cases below these shelves, and on top of one of these, under a large framed picture of my children that obscures them, are these ratty volumes:
The Barth books are a throwback to my early college days, when I simply bought the cheapest volume; I don’t buy mass market paperbacks anymore (okay, maybe rarely). The Shakespeare books are too tall to fit on a shelf full of Shakespeare stuff, although there are a few shelves of Shakespeare stuff in the room. Actually, I’m not really sure why these books are here at all. It’s likely that I hid them behind the aforementioned large framed picture one day while cleaning up and never reshelved. Not a pretty shelf.
Mark Twain used to write in bed—so did our greatest poet. But I wonder how often they wrote in bed—or whether they did it twice and the story took hold. Such things happen. Also I would like to know what things they wrote in bed and what things they wrote sitting up. All of this has to do with comfort in writing and what its value is. I should think that a comfortable body would let the mind go freely to its gathering.
You know I always smoke a pipe when I work—at least I used to and now I have taken it up again. It is strange—as soon as a pipe begins to taste good, cigarettes become tasteless. I find I smoke fewer and fewer cigarettes. Maybe I can cut them out entirely for a while. This would be a very good thing. Even with this little change, my deep-seated and perennial cigarette cough is going away. A few months without that would be a real relief.
I have dawdled away a good part of my free time now carving vaguely on a scrap of mahogany, but I guess I have been thinking too. Who knows. I sit here in a kind of a stupor and call it thought.
Now I have taken the black off my desk again, clear down to the wood, and have put a green blotter down. I am never satisfied with my writing surface.
My choice of pencils lies between the black Calculator stolen from Fox Films and this Mongol 2 3/8 F which is quite black and holds its point well—much better in fact than the Fox pencils. I will get six more or maybe four more dozen of them for my pencil tray.
I have found a new kind of pencil—the best I have ever had. Of course it costs three times as much too but it is black and soft but doesn’t break off. I think I will always use these. They are called Blackwings and they really glide over the paper.
In the very early dawn, I felt a fiendish desire to take my electric pencil sharpener apart. It has not been working very well and besides I have always wanted to look at the inside of it. So I did and found that certain misadjustments had been made at the factory. I corrected them, cleaned the machine, oiled it and now it works perfectly for the first time since I have it. There is one reward for not sleeping.
Today is a dawdly day. They seem to alternate. I do a whole of a day’s work and then the next day, flushed with triumph, I dawdle. That’s today. The crazy thing is that I get about the same number of words down either way. This morning I am clutching the pencil very tight and this is not a good thing. It means I am not relaxed. And in this book I want to be just as relaxed as possible. Maybe that is another reason I am dawdling. I want that calmness to settle on me that feels so good—almost like a robe of cashmere it feels.
It has been a good day of work with no harm in it. I have sat long over the desk and the pencil has felt good in my hand. Outside the sun is very bright and warm and the buds are swelling to a popping size. I guess it is a good thing I became a writer. Perhaps I am too lazy for anything else.
On the third finger of my right hand I have a great callus just from using a pencil for so many hours every day. It has become a big lump by now and it doesn’t ever go away. Sometimes it is very rough and other times, as today, it is as shiny as glass. It is peculiar how touchy one can become about little things. Pencils must be round. A hexagonal pencil cuts my fingers after a long day. You see I hold a pencil for about six hours every day. This may seem strange but it is true. I am really a conditioned animal with a conditioned hand.
I am really dawdling today when what I want to write is in my head. It is said that many writers talk their books out and so do not write them. I think I am guilty of this to a large extent. I really talk too much about my work and to anyone who will listen. If I would limit my talk to inventions and keep my big mouth shut about work, there would probably be a good deal more work done.
The callus on my writing finger is very sore today. I may have to sandpaper it down. It is getting too big.
The silly truth is that I can take almost any amount of work but I have little tolerance for confusion.
From John Steinbeck’s 1969 interview in The Paris Review.
Biblioklept 