Everyone who arrives here with books must leave them on departure. Not work tools but books to while away the time.
The Library was founded when, noting that books were leaving with friends and that fervent promises to return them were unmet, it became the practice to warn before arrival that books could not leave, mine or theirs, once they were here.
Over the years there has been good nature and at times great generosity in the leaving of the books. There has been wit, illumination, excitement and surprise in both the books and their leavers (as well as occasional shame-facedness).
No book is turned away, or locked away, though some are shelved separately as too scary or violent for the unwary, reading perhaps alone or in a lonely room of the house.
I am the Trash Librarian, dilatory but aware of my duties to preserve and acquire. A few years ago one of the Girls provided a library stamp which has spaces for donor, date of acquisition, and serves as a bookplate. So all of this millenium's books are a record of friends' visits and times spent with them.
I wish I had thought of this sooner because while the more memorable - or inappropriate titles - can be attached to a giver, many cannot. After all, the house has been in the family since the late fifteen hundreds.
As I have time now to be diligent in my Librarianship, and as blogging invites contributions from virtual visitors, I thought there might be interest in the Library, and in the world in which it is set.
11 comments:
oh i see, dilatory [dila-tree] means 'slow to act' or 'tardy'.
i had to look it up :-)
Lenna,
I hope to remark on anything of interest, right down to individual words (is there a smaller category?) as I get them all reshelved in their proper order.
Although the books stay here there is a tendency for them to migrate all over the house and garden,
then they pile up disordered and unfindable.
Hi, Trash Librarian, what an amazing, or actually amazon, idea. For a start, tell us what is your Desert Island Book and invite your real and virtual visitors to reveal theirs. And do you have among your Trash the Bible, the whole of Shakespeare and the Britannica, that Desert Island shipwrecks have as standard issue?
Unlike David Hockney, who chose porn on the ground that only that genre can be read and re-read all over again, I would choose science fiction as the ultimate evasion. I would settle for Stanislaw Lem's Solaris, about the intelligent living planet that empatises with space travellers and makes the objects of their dreams and nightmares materialise in their vicinity. Enjoy!
there's a good book coming out soon on italian basso continuo, I would be glad to donate it to the Library!
literally the best desert island book is 'the house that sailed away' but i can't remember who wrote it and i haven't seen it in the library for many years (it was falling apart i fear from many re-reads); dear librarian could you keep an eye out for it for me?
Pispolo, We have Lem; though I'm not sure we have Solaris unless it is part of a collection.
I am sure we have a DVD of Solaris.
I will check when I get to L.
giules. thank you. The Library will be proud to receive your book, though I fear it may not be easy reading.
There is a spinet in the tower room for those who might wish to try over the musical examples.
Lenna, the last time I saw 'the house that sailed away it was at the bottom of the attic stairs. It is not there now. Yet another one to track down (sigh).
When I find it I shall have a reread.
Librarian,
Solaris is a largish book on its own right, don't look for it in collections.
I bet you anything you have the 2002 action-filled and sleak inferior Solaris film, with George Clooney, instead of the one you absolutely should have, made in 1972 by the great Andrei Tarkovsky?
The House that Sailed Away is by Pat Hutchins(1975). Great. But are you aged 4-8?
I can't find the solaris film; see, something must be done.
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