The Literary Mystique (12/3/2008)

There was a very funny scene in an old Seinfeld episode (I guess they're all old now) wherein George was upset that he had left his books in the apartment of a woman he was no longer seeing and he wanted them back. Jerry asks, "What is it with people and books? . . . Why do you need it after you read it?"

What is it about books that we cherish so? Even books that we don't have any intention of reading again—or that we say we will read again but know deep down we will never get to—fill shelves in our homes. We move them from place to place; we box them up to lug them across the state or the country when we move, we move them from room to room when we need to make room for a piece of furniture. We rearrange them. We shelve them by subject, author, title. In one of my more brilliant moments (I think) I shelved all my novels from college in chronological order of when they were written, with each continent (where the writer was from) on a different shelf. That felt so right, so satisfying. (Side note, I claimed all the expatriates as American despite the fact that they lived and wrote in Europe. And I claimed T. S. Eliot, too.)

When my husband and I moved from Grand Rapids to Lansing we had 40-50 boxes of books to move. Some were for his office, some were from college, some were for fun, some we'd had since we were children. Before we moved we got rid of a few things, but no books were left behind. When the movers estimated the price of the move they apparently didn't understand that books are very heavy en masse because, though told that the imposing wall of boxes was all books, the estimator grossly misjudged the weight. And though each trip to Lansing before the move we loaded the car up with books until it sat mere inches from the highway speeding away underneath, we were still over the weight limit for the truck when we moved. They had to get an additional truck and throw a few things in it to be "legal" on the road (which of course took a couple hours) and we ended up moving in around 10pm at night.

Why go through so much trouble and expense for books? Why do we love them so?

When I was pregnant two of my baby showers featured books. At one people brought and signed board books rather than cards and the other was simply a book shower—all the gifts were books. I was so excited to get so many books for my little guy. And I still can't stop buying them. Just Monday night I bought another picture book that is much too old for him, but I couldn't help myself. I want our son to love books as much as his parents.

Because I love books I want to share them with others. Just like when I see a movie I know someone will love, when I read a book that is perfect for a friend, I loan it out. And I do expect to get these loaners back—especially since with non-fiction books I'm a highlighter and note-taker. Three of my books are currently MIA: Birth: The Surprising History of How We Are Born (which I loaned to my mother-in-law and which I think is now being held hostage by one of her coworkers), Confederates in the Attic (which I saw on the shelf at my in-laws' house at Thanksgiving, bookmarked about 1/3 of the way through), and If You Want to Write (which I loaned to a member of my writing group only to find out later that she is terrible at returning things and I may never see it again). [2011 Update: I rebought the birth book, got Confederates in the Attic back, and still haven't seen the writing book.]

But the art of retrieving your books is complicated. Like George indicated, I can't just go up to someone and demand my books back and I can't break into someone's house and just pull my book off their shelf or out of some stack of papers and junk mail it's been lost in. I did take a book back from my parents' house once and they have never asked me where it went so I'm sure they didn't remember they even had it.

But I don't want to ask for a book back before the loanee has had a chance to read it because I want them to read it—that's why I loaned it out in the first place. Plus, if I was the loan initiator and the book hasn't been read yet, I can't expect the loanee to be immediately as excited about the book. It may take them time to get around to reading it—after all, they didn't even ask for it. And in at least one case, I also have a book on my shelf from one of these people that I haven't gotten to yet. So everyone should get a little bit of grace.

Regardless of the situation though, I do eventually want my books back. Why? In the cases mentioned above, I really do intend to read them again. But even if I didn't, I know I'd still want them back. Books are a part of my identity (and if you're still reading this blog right now, I suspect they are part of yours as well). Books on the shelf in someone's home (like CDs in their car and DVDs in their entertainment center) help you get to know them better. What sorts of books do they like to read? What have they read? What common ground do we have? Do they like this author as much as I do? Will they get it if I refer to this character or recite this line? How do they treat their books? All of these things can help us know one another more.

In our increasingly digital age, where iPod playlists are hidden and the websites someone visits are not in plain sight I think we may be missing out on some interesting ways to get to know one another. We rarely visit one another at someone's home, instead meeting at coffee shops because our houses are messy or we just don't want to take the time to get "stuck" at someone's house. How much better could we know one another if we could see the physical evidence of what interests us?

Books are part of me and my family. Though when I was growing up my love of books was an anomaly (dad read the paper, mom read price tags, and my sister read teen magazines--though now they are all readers in the more traditional sense). Somehow I ended up a little library nerd from the very beginning, and I'm glad I did. I have been more places, lived in more times, loved and lost more people (and pets!), found more murderers, discovered more treasure, and mused about more things as a character in a book than I could in ten lifetimes.

So what is it about books? Why do we need them after we read them? Because they are part of our personal history. They are like photo albums. If I take and keep pictures of significant vacations or trips or events, of course I am going to keep the record of my adventure as a rabbit in the English countryside (Watership Down) or my family's travels across the harsh American frontier (the Little House series) or that summer I spent in Spain (The Sun Also Rises). It's all part of my inner life, my personal history.

So tell me (please!) what books you will never part with. Comment (no need to sign up for anything) and share your favorite stories with me!