|
(I'm a top Google hit for information on the
children's author Ruth Chew. Click
here for my page about Ruth Chew.)
 is
what happens when you accumulate books at your parents' house
for 22 years, and then realize that you have to move and can't take
all your books and bookshelves with you. I would have been
willing to settle for *most* of the books and *all* of the
bookshelves, but it turns out they wouldn't let me leave a bunch of
books just lying around on the floor. So, I took most of the
books and all but one of the bookshelves. This is the shelf
that got left behind. (Maybe it doesn't look like that
many books, but look at the picture of the same shelf, emptier, and
just think about the total volume of volumes.)
So, what about the books that *didn't* get left
behind? What did I take with me? That's what my web page
is all about. The books I collect, read, and love. And
even some I don't like.
Use the menu to visit my book categories.
I've got a catalog, wishlist, and bibliography for each category.
The biggest category right now is Juvenile Sci-Fi Fantasy. I
concentrated on compiling those books for the 2003 University of
Chicago Undergraduage Book Collecting contest, but I didn't win.
The other categories have been developed subsequently. That
would explain why they're a little skeletal.
My book stuff pages are full of more general
experience and advice. And more lists. This website is
mostly all just lists of stuff. I'm good at lists.
My website pages are really just a link to
email me, a page that says random stuff about what I want to
incorporate into my website next, and a page about me. (I do
other things besides read. Sometimes.)
If you click on the dragon, you will
encounter a website which sells beautiful Windstone Editions like
mine. Mine's a Lap Dragon, but there are many to choose from.
They look almost real.
If you want, you can read the
essay that I wrote for the U of C book contest. For a
while I tried to keep it up to date, but that got to be tricky.
*****
"What shall I do with my books?"
'What shall I do with my books,' was the question;
and the answer 'Read them' sobered the questioner. But if you
cannot read them, at any rate handle them and, as it were, fondle
them. Peer into them. Let them fall open where they
will. Read on from the very first sentence that arrests the
eye. Then turn to another. Make a voyage of discovery,
taking soundings of uncharted seas.... Arrange them on your
own plan, so that if you do not know what is in them, you at least
know where they are. If they cannot be your friends, let them
at any rate be your acquaintances. If they cannot enter the
circle of your life, do not deny them at least a nod of recognition.
--Winston Churchill.
*****
The power of books:
There is hardly any grief that an hour's reading
will not dissipate.
-- Montesquieu
*****
The sanctity of books:
Call it impiety, but to me the very word
library has a sanctity that church cannot gain. The
sacredness is my own association, of course. It is thick walls
and tall windows. It is quiet rustling pages that whisper of
knowledge. It is cool and smelly with that exciting odor that
can only be got from aging glue, printers ink, paper, leather, and
ideas together.
-- A. C. Greene |
