Paris is wonderful, my favorite city on earth, but with real estate prices being what they are, I can't really afford to offer free shelter to piles of printed paper any more.
First of all, they multiply.
I thought the ebook would help, but I was wrong.
Most books I want to read - I'm still catching up on the 20th century - exist in paper form only! And so they accumulate. On shelves, by the bed, on the floor, on tables, and in shaky towers in nooks and crannies throughout the house. And that's not even counting the books of other family members.
With Paris apartments hitting the 7000 euros per square meter, you do the math.
If books paid rent for space I'd make a fortune!
And yet, how can I part with them?Sure Orhan Pamuk is boring in French, but maybe one day I'll grow up and realize I love Mon nom est Rouge. (He won the Nobel. There must be a reason.)
And Roth? I'd sooner have Carnovsky at my dinner table taking notes on my child rearing techniques than part with a single one of his novels - even the lousy, needlessly pornographic ones. Any writer who can reread the Zuckerman Bound trilogy without inferiority despair is a genius or delusional, or, as often the case, both.
And the Murakami's, the Sedaris, the Sacks (Oliver), the - there are too many! Too many terrific writers! And that's without even mentioning the excellent books by dear friends: La Keegan, La Skeslien Charles, La Korkeakivi, La Duncan, La ...
What to do? I need a room, as do my books. Meanwhile, they breathe the air and eat all my cheese. Each time I want to give one away (say, Paris Brune, about a provincial who comes to Paris to work in the post office) I think: No! Its vision is unique! If it leaves this house I will never delve again into the heart of pre-internet post office rituals!
And I'm not kidding.
Oh, please, someone, offer at least some of my books a good home.
Perhaps the American Library Used Book Sale?
Or a donation to a hospital (what better read for a sick person than a lively novel about La Poste!)
Or a local library with eclectic taste. (Benchly Roundup, anyone?)
I won't - can't - give away my Shaw, or Shakespeare, or Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, but there may be a few gems I will force myself to part with.
I have do.
I can barely walk through the piles.
Help!!!!!!
