The Pleasure in Partially Read Books

You’re listening to A Way with Words, the show about language and how we use it. I’m Grant Barrett.

And I’m Martha Barnette. Last month I took on a big task, which was to cull books from my personal library. Cull books? Cull books. And you didn’t call me to take the ones that I wanted? I figure you probably have all the reference books that I have. My wife would barricade the door.

I know, right? It’s such a big task for nerds and book lovers, and it’s also an emotional one, too. You know, I was looking at my shelves and thinking, oh, yes, I’ve read that book. I’ve read that book. And then there are the other books that you haven’t read. Right. That, you know, will I read it? Do I just need to keep it around? Right. It’s really emotional. Right. And then I sometimes feel guilty that I haven’t read these books yet. Although I’ve seen people argue that it’s a good thing to have books that you haven’t read yet, that it reminds you of that great body of knowledge out there and it’s somehow inspiring. I don’t have that experience. Do you?

I do have that experience. I have it for my son as well. I kind of want him to know that he can always look things up or find somebody left their wisdom behind for him to pick up as if someone had left a trail of coins. Right. Right. Even if you haven’t read the book.

Even if you haven’t read it. But there’s also the value in not thinking that you have to commit to a book. Yeah. Read a little bit, put it on the shelf, come back later. Certainly anthologies are all about that for me. I love pulling down an anthology and just flipping to a page while I’m having tea or waiting for the kettle to boil, that sort of thing. And can we talk about what a beautiful word the word anthology is from the Greek anthos, meaning flowers? So it’s really a collection of flowers. It’s a literary bouquet. Every page is a pressed leaf or blossom.

Right. But you’ve also brought up something that I was thinking about after reading an essay by Kevin Mims about the value of having books that are only partially read in your collection, that that’s a whole other category of books. And it’s not necessarily a bad thing.

What’s the value for you?

Of having the partially read books?

Partially read books.

I don’t know. It’s kind of like taking a bite of something and putting it back in the fridge. Maybe you’ll get to it, but maybe it’ll be one of those guilt-inducing books I never get back to.

Right. Yeah. I have less and less guilt about that.

Do you?

I do.

I read the whole range of highfalutin stuff to kids’ stuff and everything in between and magazines and newspapers. And, of course, the thousands of words a day we all read on the Internet at this point. So my guilt is less and less as time goes by.

I just move on to the next good thing waiting for me.

Well, that’s a good attitude.

I guess I don’t have guilt about reference books, of course.

Oh, reference is a different thing.

Because I’m constantly going to go back to those. But the ones I haven’t finished, they kind of scowl at me from the shelves.

I would say that culling books is hardest for things that aren’t digitized and will never be digitized. Letting go of it means I may never see that or its content ever again. The tiny fraction of books that are available in digital form is kind of horrifying, particularly classic reference works.

Nobody will digitize the Sicilian dictionary that I have.

It will never be digitized.

Right.

It was a one-off that some guy published in the 1960s.

Right.

It’ll never make it.

Right.

And then there’s the whole emotional baggage that comes with a book that somebody gave you.

Right.

Maybe you don’t care about the content.

And they wrote their name inside.

Yeah.

And they wrote a nice message to you.

How can you part with that?

I don’t.

I keep them if I can.

Yeah.

It’ll be my wife’s fault if they ever show up in the bookstore.

Or the Little Free Library, right?

Yeah, Little Free Library.

You all drive all over town putting those in.

Well, we go to the mall, actually. There’s a Little Free Library at one of the malls. It’s often empty. I just did it a couple weeks ago. I put like 20 or 30 books in there, and I’m sure they were gone within a few hours because of the foot traffic.

But that’s the audience you want to reach.

Yeah.

There’s no bookstore in so many malls anymore, so that little library has to do the job.

Right.

It’s a win-win, right?

It’s healthy for you and healthy for everybody else.

I got to say, I know that our listeners are just revving up right now to talk to us about culling their own books, the feelings that they get, the emotions that come over the finished and the unfinished and the read and the unread and the stuff they’ll never read, but they’re going to keep.

Yeah, your relationship with your library.

With your library, yes.

Your relationship with your personal library.

We want to hear about it.

Send us an email to words@waywordradio.org or call us 877-929-9673.