Books

Now my books have been unpacked I went through them arranging them by author and genre. I found books I’d forgotten I owned and books I'd forgotten existed. Most of them I want to reread. I keep a pile of books by my bed, a sort of visual to read list. With all these forgotten books coming to light the pile on my bedside table was threatening to collapse. Even after arranging them on the shelves below. There are still too many books so I’ve started piling them on the floor.

I really should find more time to read. The ten minutes in bed, before I pass out every night, is just not long enough. If I’m going to make any sort of dent in these books I’m going to have to schedule whole weekends or days where I do nothing but read. Ok, so that’s unrealistic. More realistic would be whole evenings given over to reading. I’m glad I don’t watch TV but I do spend far to much time on the internet.

The other thing I found is duplicates. Books I had as a child or bought for myself for English class have been duplicated by relatives and presented to my children. When I’m browsing second hand book sales I forget what I own. The price is only ten cents or a quarter so I buy everything I want to reread or think I might want to read. That is how I ended up with three copies of The Seeds Of Time by John Whyndham.

It’s a collection of science fiction stories. Brilliantly told, like all his stories. Wyndham takes extraordinary things like time travel, Martians, humanoid robots and future worlds, inserting them in to perfectly ordinary, everyday events that anyone is occupied with. He makes the unreal seem almost real, at times creepy but always fascinating.

All the duplicate books are waiting in a box, for my children to decide whether they want them before they go to the second hand store. I’m hoping the second hand book store gives store credits for donated books because, my Amazon wish list isn’t getting any shorter.