It Is A Truth Universally Acknowledged That A Bibliophile Must Be In Want Of More Books

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a bibliophile must be in want of more books. As I was minding my own business, at least to the extent that it is possible for me to mind my own business, when I was taking my first break of the day, and reading a book, one of my coworkers came up to me and asked me if I was reading a new book. I was. I had just started it during my break, in fact. She asked me what book I was reading, and I explained that it was the autobiography of a country singer I was not particularly familiar with. She then told me about a book she had read before that she had enjoyed as a bit of light reading about refugees bonding over sports. She then said the book had something to do with Refugees United, or something like that, which reminded me of Manchester United, and that it was written by a New York Times reporter named something Saint something. I noted what she had said, and thought to look up the book. As I have a soft spot in my heart for waifish vagabond children, I agreed that it would be a book I would likely enjoy. By the time I had returned from my break, about 40 pages into my new book, I had an e-mail with the book’s title and author and an implied obligation to read the book so that we could compare thoughts. Those who greatly enjoy books, after all, like nothing better than to encourage other people to read the books that they like.

This happens alarmingly often. Shortly after the preceding events, I received a text message from a different friend of mine, this one in Florida, who told me about a book on Jewish patriotism during the American Revolution, which included subsidizing the rations of American soldiers at Fort Pitt, an area the two of us are closely connected to. Then, just after that, one of my roommates sent me a message letting me know that I had a package waiting for me, a book, with no return address. I was left to ponder whether it was the book from the Air & Space Power Journal that I was looking forward to reading on space exploration or if it is one of the many books I request from time to time from self-published writers looking to promote their books on my modestly popular blog, in the hope that my generally enthusiastic reviews will increase their sales, a hope that ought to be successful at least sometimes. Nor is this all. Almost every time I talk to my local congregational pastor, there is some sort of book that he wants us to read, or to purchase from Abe Books, which is a good source for inexpensive used books of high quality, whether it happens to be a moderately obscure commentary on Romans or, as was the case last night, a book on the vanishing word in our increasingly image-based culture. Being a person of the word draws the attention of other people of the word, who encourage reading and the acquisition of ever larger collections of books, which is not the most convenient habit when one lives a peripatetic sort of existence.

For as long as I can remember, I have been a bibliophile [1]. Wherever I wander, I have ended up with books. My love for books has placed many literal and figurative burdens on my back. From childhood, my shoulder muscles have been strengthened by the heavy weight of fragile backpacks overstuffed with books. At times the shock absorbers on my cars have sagged under the burden of boxes and boxes of books being schlepped from one place to another. Yet it is a truth that when one has disciplined one’s mind and habits to enjoy the pace of reading, flipping pages according to one’s comprehension, seeing books as pleasant friends, the source of education and the origin of one’s thoughts and beliefs, that those around recognize this habit and seek to encourage it, to encourage those around them to have enough books in common that reading, which is generally a solitary activity, feeds one’s social life by sharing in the same kind of books, participating in conversations and debates about the subjects of books. My love of books has led me to give public speeches about fellow bibliophiles like William Tyndale, and to listen to other people speak about more colorful bibliophiles like Lewis Carroll [2], and to go to meetings with fellow bibliophiles where one spoke about not only the content of books, but about the choice of fonts and typesetting and other more arcane aspects of the art of books, which has helped me out when I have had to talk knowledgeably with people who care more about the artistic design of books than necessarily about the text itself, which has always been my main interest from my reading material [3].

If a tree falls in the forest and nobody hears it, does it make a sound? It does if the tree is ground into pulp and turned into pages for a book that shouts to the world. Such a fate is not unreasonable, after all. Reading is an activity that tends to encourage more of the same. For example, if one reads a good book about a given subject, that reading will encouraging other reading of similar kinds. As a college student I watched an enjoyable play on Pride & Prejudice, and that encouraged me to read the novel, which I enjoyed a lot more than the first novel of Austen’s I had read during high school, Sense & Sensibility. And from that I have read many other books by and about Jane Austen [4]. Likewise, if one reads a worthwhile book on history, or theology, invariably the people who write this worthwhile book will have read other worthwhile books, which are cited and/or quoted in the book, which encourage more reading, so that one not only reads a book, but one reads the books that inspired the author of said book to write about his (or her) subject of choice. And so it goes, ad infinitum. Before one knows it, one is scouring the internet or one’s public library system for obscure manuscripts of early translations of materials originally published in Latin or Greek, where one is not trying to struggle with the originals themselves. Don’t laugh. This sort of thing happens to people like me all the time.

And that is why it is a truth universally acknowledged that a bibliophile must be in want of more books. For books, like much else in life, are not something that one enjoys entirely rationally. Not that there is anything wrong with being at least a little irrational, or that books are worse than the myriad other ways that human beings are somewhat odd and eccentric. Many of us are touched with insanity, sometimes of several kinds, and the compulsive love of reading and enjoying the company of books is far less dangerous than many of the other obsessions that are available. Still, we have to recognize that books are the product of people, people who are driven by the compulsion to write, an activity that takes quite a large amount of time and effort to hone. People do not write without a reason, usually of a deep and intense nature. After all, people cannot be readers unless there is something to read. The enjoyment of reading depends first on the act of creation that someone else has undertaken, an act that becomes tied to all kinds of time and resource-consuming acts of business involving editing and printing and marketing. And yet people continue to write, and continue to read, as those of us who live lives that are too solitary and isolated still seek the company and conversation of others, whether the words come over a table spread with tasty food, or are read lovingly from a page. Even the most solitary reader is a social being, encouraging the writing and conversation of others even in silent enjoyment and patronage.

[1] See, for example:

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2015/12/24/true-confessions-of-a-bibliophile/

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2016/01/11/you-just-got-passed-by-a-toaster/

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2014/09/15/in-my-tribe/

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2014/05/05/lead-us-not-into-temptation/

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2013/12/10/a-test-of-willpower/

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2013/03/17/everyday-i-write-the-book/

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2011/04/02/sagecraft/

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2010/12/02/names-i-call-myself-a-musing-on-the-politics-of-self-identity/

[2] Lewis Carroll being more colorful because he was a lover of far more controversial things than books. See, for example:

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2014/09/03/book-review-the-mystery-of-lewis-carroll/

[3] See, for example: