Attachments

I watch myself weed books from my shelves. Sehr komisch, I think. Very funny. 

It is my belief that I should hang on to no more books than I have shelves to keep them on. And by shelves to keep them on, I don't mean stacked on the washstand next to my bed or stacked on top of and under the library table in the living room. Definitely not on the ironing board. 

I do not have room for more book shelves. Yet new books are being published all the time. Local independent bookstores need my support. And yes, I do use the public library. 

So last week it was time to weed, to make some decisions about all those books on the shelves. I began with the books closest to the back door, the ones on the shelves that rest on brackets hooked into supports that I screwed into the studs 30-odd years ago during Kris's nap. Surprisingly, they've held up, despite occasional landslides.

Two of these shelves hold fiction, horizontally stacked, a mix of read-a-long-time-ago, want-to-read-someday, ought-to-read-someday, given-to-me-by-a-friend, and picked-up-for-free-or-for-cheap. When I need something to read, like when I've finished a book at 10 p.m. and need something to fall asleep with, I look here. And then go look somewhere else. Clearly some of these books can and must go. 

I stand on the kitchen step stool and pick up a book from the shelf. What is this? Where did it come from? What sort of intellectual pretension or passing fancy made me think I would read it? Is it diverting historical fiction, or the predictable kind I have no patience with? Sherwood Anderson—really? I read the first chapter of that little piece of Americana a couple years ago on vacation and could not make myself read more. Time to get rid of it. Jonathan Franzen's "Crossroads"? That big book stays on the shelf for now, if only so that I can continue to congratulate myself for getting through it. 

I notice that after a dozen or so books I'm completely confused. Why do I return some to the shelves? Why do I  drop others into the brown paper bag on the floor--the bag that will surely split when I take it out the back door? 

There is no logic here, no rational basis for holding on to some books and not to others. It's comical, quizzical, completely subjective. Are there hidden rules for keeping or discarding books? Why am I so attached to some and so finished with others? I seldom get rid of gifts from friends and family. Books that opened my mind about something tend to stay on the shelf. (I may need to pry open that crack again someday.) Books I dearly want others to read stay, too. But the ones I give up on? A crooked smile is often the only reason I've got.

Kept on the shelf: a Faulkner (seriously, I ought to read some Faulkner); "Hamlet" (recently reread, but I dumped the book of criticism I read alongside it); "Cloud Cuckoo Land" (well-woven story, bright shiny book from last Christmas); an Elena Ferrente novel (50 cent purchase, likely to be engrossing). 

What to do with fiction read long ago? There are two or three books each from Anne Tyler, Jane Smiley, Alice McDermott, Louise Erdrich -- books I collected and read as they were published, some of them decades ago. Many of these went into the bag for the library book sale.

There was a pile of novels by Sue Miller, and I happened to flip open the cover of one, wondering about the copyright date. Inside, on the fly leaf, I found an inscription, because the book had been a Mother's Day gift to me in 1990. The message, written by my husband in my three-year-old son's voice. It began "To the ultimate Good Mother," a reference to Miller's previous book—the one that led me to mention this title to Lon. It went on, "Me and my baby sister/brother [I was pregnant at the time] know you really like to read lots and lots. So we got you this book because we want you to be happy on Mother's Day and all the time, not just a couple while."

"A couple while." I'd forgotten how Kris said that as a preschooler. 

The inscription. Lon gave me many books through the years. I should look for more of these. 

Both Lon and Kris are gone now — Lon died in 2006, Kris in 2017, five years ago this month. 

The book was titled "Family Pictures." 

I kept it.