Georgette Heyer

[Primula Baggins]

People must buy them, read them, and sell them back.

How horrifying! I cannot for the life of me understand how they can bear to let them go! But then, that goes for any good book. I need them with me forever, yesss, preciousss.

Me, too. I'm a buy-and-hold person. It's come back to bite me, though, and I'm culling my collection now—at least of books I neither enjoyed nor admired. I tell myself it makes more room for more good stuff. (Every possible wall of my office is jammed with shelves, the upstairs hall is lined with them, there are shelves in every bedroom, the room with the kids' computer is lined with their books, there are books in the dining room and family room, and shelves next to the living room fireplace. . . . And still piles of unshelved books in corners. )

Still, though—Mr. Prim and I watch those home-redecorating shows and are creeped out by how many people live in gigantic, luxurious houses with NOT A BOOK IN SIGHT! They have banks of gorgeous built-in bookshelves lined with tchotchkes some decorator bought for them and nary a book. And often there is no place to read—lamps next to chairs interrupt the flow, I guess, and possibly make those annoying little reflections in the TV picture.

They would be so much better off if they bought and read some nice Georgette Heyer!

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Tchotchkes?



I'm learning Yiddish from a Lutheran in Oregon now?

[Primula Baggins]

Sorry—it's just the best word for the concept! Better than "knick-knacks" or "dustcatchers." I've used it for many years. I like the way it sounds.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I was just teasing, silly. I actually like the fact that a Jewish boy from New York can learn a Yiddish word from a Lutheran girl from Oregon.



(I use "boy" and "girl" somewhat loosely )

[Primula Baggins]

[vison]

I don't have nearly as many books as I used to, I try to keep only books I'm going to re-read. I try not to buy a book until I've read it once; thank heaven for the public library! If I like it a lot and intend to read it again, I'll buy it. Preferably a cheap second-hand copy. I've given hundreds and hundreds to the MCC, and now they clutter up someone else's house.

I know a guy who collects books. To him, they are objects. I don't get it. A book is to READ, not look at. I don't buy expensive books as a rule, I buy second-hand, or I buy paperback. Sure, it's tempting to think one could have a posh library of nicely bound books arranged alphabetically, etc., but that's not how it would work for me. I remember being horribly disappointed the first and only time I ever went to a book fair, I went hoping to buy books to read and found only "collectible" books, and that's not what I'm interested in.

Over the years, I've found some swell books second-hand, including a few first editions of Canadian books that are now quite collectible, and that's a nice bonus. I also found a real treasure, a first edition of John Kincaid's "Memoirs of a Rifleman" and that's the John Kincaid who appears in "The Spanish Bride" by Georgette Heyer. Also two other books about the Peninsular war, old but not first editions. I treat those books a little better than the others, not turning down the pages and not breaking their spines . . . . However, they are books I read all the time, not just look at sitting on the shelf.

Then, there are cookbooks, which are a whole other category. I am down to about 500 or so, having turfed a whack of them in the last few years. I don't "cook" from them, exactly, but read them for fun and ideas. Now I'm picky about what cookbooks I keep or buy, they have to be "real" cookbooks, useful and fun.