Notes to self

• Post quotations and thoughts on the 12 books read over Christmas vacation.
• Finish reading Paraíso Travel before heading off to Cartagena on the 25th.
• Pack digital camera for the Hay Festival. Takes notes, but refrain from attempting to post lectures word-for-word and instead write brief summaries of each.
• Add all new books to LibraryThing account.
• Read Philip Pullman's post, "Milton in 2008" (via Maud). (Try to find a copy of his forward to read and add it to my new little stockpile of Milton material.)
  

Boxed

I have officially finished packing my books and have entered each one into a LibraryThing account while I was at it. (I've placed one of their nifty "cover" widgets a little further down the sidebar on the right.)

Now all I've got to do is move them...

Ill

I think I'm going to be sick...

But wanting to thin out his collection, he found he couldn't even give away books to libraries or thrift shops, which said they were full. So on Sunday, Wayne began burning his books protest what he sees as society's diminishing support for the printed word.

Which libraries did he go to? How many? Had he even heard of the various charities that donate books to inner-city schools, decimated school libraries in New Orleans, or even the camel bookmobile in Kenya? (There's even a certain little school on Colombia's northern coast that is pretty desperate for books as well.)

I'm really sorry, but I just have to say it: ¡Qué gringo tan tonto!

(via Maud)

UPDATE: Tod Goldberg elaborates on the additional insult they've been heaping on this already grievous injury.

Books on the floor no more

After weeks of my stacks sadly sitting on this side of the balcony, we found the perfect bookshelves. The last time I bought shelves (Boston, 2003) a friend and I lugged the ridiculously heavy box home on the T. This time (Santa Marta, 2007) I rode home (with the same kind of ridiculously heavy box) in a taxi from one end of town to the other. A white sticker on said box proclaims, "Línea California, Hecho en Colombia." (As I dragged the box through the front door, I realized that those words could be used to describe me...)

I am home and very happy to be organizing books again.

A shot of perspective

More than one owner of a significant personal library, in the early years after Gutenberg, made it plain that no printed volume would ever be a part of it.

~ David Markson, Reader's Block