Ode to Books

Call me a bibliophile.

Libraries (Suzzallo, University of Washington, pictured above) are exotic bazaars. So are bookstores. Picture Blackwell’s on Broad Street in Oxford (which I visited while on a coach tour and, as luck would have it, had not more than twenty minutes to explore), Powell’s City of Books in downtown Portland, or City Lights in San Francisco’s North Beach neighborhood. Add a competent coffee bar and enter nirvana.

I have always been frustrated by the lack of centralized (and, more importantly, adequate) shelf space in homes and apartments in which I have lived. Books find their home in odd locations, including the garage and attic. Christopher Hitchens expressed a similar frustration in Prisoner of Shelves, one of the many excellent (and biting) essays in Arguably. It probably does not help that I have a hard time letting go (of books). The Borzoi Handbook for Writers, Black’s Law Dictionary, and Celebrated Cases of Judge Dee (Van Gulik) are somewhat unlikely neighbors on one of the shelves in my office. I have owned the first and the third for more than thirty years and the second for a mere twenty. While I own an e-reader, which theoretically could solve my space problem, unfortunately it is no substitute for the satisfaction that comes from picking up a physical copy, manually highlighting or underlining key passages, and inserting a bookmark and putting a book down on the night stand after a long, quality read.

I have become a voracious reader over time, reading two or three, if not more, books at a time, which requires careful attention to, and management of, library due dates and not infrequent visits to library book sales and the discount sections of bookstores. I read mainly to scratch intellectual itches and to fill in blind spots. Tell me something I don’t know (and that matters to me).

The irony, I suppose, is that I read (and write) for a living, although, despite years of practice (and acclimatization), contracts and legal memoranda are usually not nearly as enjoyable to read as literary classics or good biographies, including ones by Isaacson (Benjamin Franklin, Henry Kissinger, Steve Jobs), Caro (The Power Broker, The Path to Power), and Chernow (Alexander Hamilton, The House of Morgan), and McCullough (John Adams, Truman, The Wright Brothers). There is something to be said about the combination of great writing and exceptional lives (and the ancillary, but eternal, hope of gleaning nuggets of wisdom from studying these figures).

My choice of books is usually eclectic, although, as intimated above, typically it skews toward non-fiction. California (Starr), Dark Money (Mayer), and In Wartime: Stories from Ukraine (Judah) are some recent reads. While I was enjoying American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer (Bird & Sherwin), I saw a copy of Fire and Fury (Wolff) on a cart at the local library, waiting, patiently, to be returned to its shelf. I could not resist (and borrowed it). Add to this a book I promised to review for friends (who had written it), more than a few books that I have started reading and put down (temporarily, of course), as a more interesting title likely caught my eye, and to put it mildly I have more than enough on my shelf.

There are not enough hours in the day. If I choose to read a book, I cannot read another (until a later time). Of course, this opportunity cost is an age-old conundrum, but it seems different now because we live in an age of content abundance, with the democratization of publishing, on blogs (thanks for reading) and other social media platforms. No longer is a publishing house needed to publish your first book. With the right software, and a capable printer, you can do it yourself. How do you choose the right book, or the right book at a particular time? Regardless, given the choices, it is even more important to be a critical reader.

Couple this (issue of choice) with the fundamental (at least to me) need to balance content creation and consumption, and you will agree that we live in infinitely more complex times.

In the meantime, the clock is ticking on my copy of Fire and Fury, and, unfortunately, extensions are not possible. So, my choice is made.

Book suggestions welcomed.