Old Pile Of Books

"It’s just an old pile of books". I was once greeted with that phrase when I went to buy some books from a lady who was selling her husband’s library. Her husband had died recently and she was wanting to rid herself of his things. It was clear as conversation developed with her, that not only did she not like his books, but she hadn’t been very keen on him either.

The ‘old pile of books’, was a lifetime’s collection of interesting and valuable editions, numbering thousands. I offered her a fair sum for the books and gladly took them away to sell in my antiquarian bookshop I ran in Ambleside in Cumbria.

Books can divide opinion like that. Some people love them, can’t ever have enough of them, to read or collect or ‘furnish‘ a room. Others dislike them as clutter and dust collectors and are happy to be rid of them. Which of these are you?

I wrote this poem, in response to my experience with that lady and I think you will know which side I am on in the book debate:

Just an old pile of books

Books are from a bygone age

it’s an apt description;

yet turn another page

of a leather – bound edition

 

and you turn the tale of life

in another bygone age-

a time when words were rife

and teachers turned the page

 

to reveal what you know

and the unnoticed craft.

Books are a striking tableau,

showing draft after draft

 

of a person’s life

etched into the covers:

their joy, woe, success, strife,

family, friends, significant others –

 

and if you’re in the know,

that book description

can hide the real tableau

and bask in such deception.

I have many thousands of books in our Blackpool house, both for sale and in my personal collection.

 

In particular, I collect miniature books, books which have to be under 3 inches in height. These are delightful works of art, beautifully printed on a small scale and bound in leather or contemporary bindings. They have the added advantage of being housed in several small bookcases and hundreds of them can be displayed in a very small space.

 

Because I have been a book lover from childhood and that passion has grown even stronger over the years, I will leave you with another poem about collecting small things.

 

 

The art of small things

It can be hard to turn a page,
no offence to the book, or its age,
but it could be opened faster
if it were bigger, vaster

than the whole library I’m sitting with.
This is all part of the myth,
that bigger is better – or another,
that life is ruled by Big Brother

watching you. Mass Media’s laced
with this poison and can be traced
back to ‘size matters’ – it’s implicit,
all you have to do is listen for it –

no need to magnify; a magnifying glass
will show the miniature’s first class.
If you fix it in your view,
this truth that hides, becomes visible to you.

Thanks for reading, David Wilkinson