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There is no furniture so charming as books
- Sidney Smith
Going right to the heart of the matter and avoiding niceties, one must
acknowledge that bibliophiles are addicts, and like addicts of any variety,
they have a special set of problems and enemies.
The first enemy of the book lover is time. Gertrude Stein once remarked
that she was relieved to know that she did not have to read all of the
books in the world. Any serious lover of books knows precisely what
she meant, but most of them want to read at least all of the good or
interesting or important books in the world. Such desires lead to the
second problem of the book lover. The truest bibliophiles want to own
the books they love. It is not enough to know that books exist - there
is a need for them to exist in one's own home, as ownership confers
on the book lover the right to touch his or her books. In addition to
reading books, it should be understood, the passionate collector also
has the need to see, touch, hold, leaf through and even fondle them.
All of those people who have built private libraries take great pride,
not only in the books that they have managed to amass but in the adroit
maneuvers that have allowed them to keep their collections intact over
a number of major moves in their lives. Once started, the private library
has an excellent chance of surviving revolutions, intercontinental relocations
and even single or multiple divorces. Books, in a phrase, are more important
to collectors than wars, oceans or spouses.
And now we come to the most pragmatic enemy of the book lover: space.
Enter the home of the dedicated bibliophile and you will find that there
is simply no place to sit. Bookshelves are so filled to overflowing
that bric-a-brac, paintings and even family photos have been relegated
to the floor. Scattered here and there on the floor are piles of books.
Chairs, tables and all other available surfaces are taken up with books.
It may be simple for the family cat to make its way across this mess,
but for most of us it is something akin to negotiating a U.S. Marine
Corps obstacle course.
One need not boast a library of ten thousand volumes to have a space
problem. Even the non-addicted collector faces a problem,especially
when faced with the realities of the micro-mini apartments in which
most city dwellers live these days. The books of Jorge Luis Borges,
Ernest Hemingway, Anais Nin, John Ciardi, Lawrence Durrell, Virginia
Woolf, Bruce Chatwin,Umberto Eco, Sean O'Faolain, and Primo Levi are
not so much friends as they are intimate family members. Gogol, Turgenev,
Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, Chekov and Pushkin did not so much give us books
as they did life companions. And surely without Shakespeare, Rousseau,
William James, Cicero, Freud, Marcus Aurelius and Plato our intellectual
souls would shrivel to nothing. And who among us would cast the first
stone at the person deeply attached to a collection of 370 Georges Simenon
novels?
How To Do It
or
As Many As 9000 Books in a Two and a Half Room Apartment
When one considers that there are books about everything, the space
problem of collectors becomes enormous. Even though no one can possibly
read everything, bibliophiles never stop striving. The bad news is that
the probability of finding enough space for all that we want to read
is nil. Housing our collections, whether they consist of 90 or 9000
volumes, is problematic, especially when one considers that within our
homes there should also be ample space for dining, playing, sleeping,
making love, listening to music and the other activities with which
we involve ourselves to pass our allotted days. Even though no philosopher
or physicist has been foolish enough to attempt to answer how a seemingly
infinite number of books can fit into a finite physical space, the good
news is that even in a miniscule apartment one can probably find space
for the number of books he or she can afford to buy.
Let's face it - 9,000 books is a lot of books. In order to have collected
this number of volumes it means that a 45 year old would have had to
read 300 books every year since his or her fifteenth birthday. A good
rule of thumb is that 60 paperback or 30 hardback books will take up
a meter of shelf space and if, as in most homes two-thirds of the books
are paperbacks, that means we need a total of 150 running meters (about
450 feet) of book shelves to house this library. If shelves averages
30 cm. in height, we are faced with the need of 45 square meters of
shelf space to house our library.
An architect friend informs me that not including the kitchen or bathroom,
the average 2 1/2 room flat in the Tel Aviv, London and New York has
88 square meters of wall space. This optimistic finding is deceptive,
however, for after deducting the area taken up by closets, arches, windows
and doors (and the physical room that doors need in order to be opened),
we are left with about 47 square meters of free wall space. If one follows
this to its logical conclusion, it means that nearly every square centimeter
of space is going to be taken up by books. No pictures, no bric-a-brac,
no open space, no drapes. Only books. And this is far from an ideal
solution to a space problem.
There are answers to this dilemma, however and the same solutions that
apply to large collections often apply to small ones as well. In all
cases, part of the trick is in getting away from standard thinking.
One partial solution is to use bookshelves of double depth so that books
may be stacked one behind the other. While these may use up a modicum
of floor space, they make a major dent in wall requirements. Another
option opens itself when one realizes that there is no requirement for
all bookshelves to stand on the floor. There is no reason why shelves
cannot bridge windows or large arches (the invariable double doors that
open to the terrace, for example). Nor is there anything to prevent
us from fastening shelves to walls above doors or windows. Yet another
possibility, albeit the most expensive, is to consider having double
sets of shelves, one in front of the other. In such arrangements, the
rear set of shelves is attached to the wall and the front set slides
on tracks to allow free access to the books behind. By utilizing double
depth and double sets of shelves, one can quarter the physical amount
of wall space required. Heck, I even know one man who has a triple set
of shelves!
While the person who has a small collection might do well to purchase
pre-made shelves, owners of even moderate libraries avoid this option.
Because such shelves come in standard widths and heights, they are rarely
flexible enough to make the most economic use of space. Frequently,
standard-sized shelves will not fit into odd-sized corners or wall spaces
that might otherwise be put to use. A bit of prudent shopping among
carpentry shops with good reputations will yield the information that
custom made shelves are not only more convenient but, as odd as it may
seem, often far less expensive.
The best, (but most unfortunately, most expensive book shelves are made
of solid wood and have plywood backings. To assure long life, such shelves
should be held together by tongue and groove construction and wooden
dowels (metal screws loosen and rust over the years). Shelving made
of pressed wood shavings are considerably cheaper, and even though some
people prefer the finish of "real wood", these are no less
acceptable from the point of durability. One warning: if using pressed
boards, shelf length should never exceed 80 cm, for beyond that, such
shelves begin to sag under the weight of books.
Because of the flexibile ways in which they can be put together and
the wide variety of sizes offered, metal shelves also offer a viable
option. Such shelves, if they are made of well painted galvanized metal
are easy to clean and will not rust. One should check to see that the
nuts and bolts used as fasteners are also galvanized. Whether one purchases
metal shelving at a relatively inexpensive supply house that caters
to commercial firms or at a too-often overpriced "furniture boutique"
is a question of choice. Those concerned more with style than status
will find that commercial varieties often make handsome set-offs to
either modern or classic furniture styles.
Books may take up vast amounts of space and their demands on our time
may be enormous but, as modern-day polymath Umberto Eco commented, "there
are two great gifts under Heaven - a blank piece of paper waiting to
be written on and a book waiting to be read". Whether it is Inspector
Maigret, Odysseus or Emma Bovary that beckons from our shelves, the
rewards they offer are incalculable.
Not The End of The Story
The final enemy of the bibliophile, as for all of us, is death. Some
book lovers, when considering whether there is a Heaven or a Hell, devote
a significant period of time to wondering whether there will be books
there. John Sparrow reflected that "I think I am worthy of heaven,
but if there are no books there, I do not care to go." Essayist
Joseph Epstein speculates that "there will be books in Heaven and
the greatest joy is that they will all be in foreign, lost and ancient
languages, all of which I will be able to read with perfect ease".
As to Hell, Epstein
speculates that there will be no actual books there - "only bound
volumes of New York Times op-ed pages."
© Daniel Rogov
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