I used to be a reader.

Before all kinds of things happened.  Now I'm a knitter with a lot of unread books.  Not that I hold knitting to blame.  Things unfold as they unfold - maybe knitting rose up to fill the gap left by the absence of bookwormishness, maybe it was time for a lifetime emphasis to shift.

I just got so raw that the fictional emotions and experiences of characters would haunt me.  I don't really believe in fiction in some ways - if it came out of human imagination, then it is true, one way or another.   Some times calling it fiction, making it a story rather than a tale, gives a narrative even more power, creating a road of access to things the audience might reject awareness of if the things were "real."

Whatever the reason, I kept buying books that interested the self I was becoming, but I mostly didn't read them.   Happened again last week, got a recommendation here, a review there and suddenly there's a box of books on its way.  Started me thinking about this reading thing, and what it used to mean and why that changed and what place I want it to have and how that matches up with who I am.

Introspective might as well be my middle name, really.  If this bothers you, you should maybe read something else.

So I went into all the corners of my house and picked up this stack there, and that pile here.  And while I was at it, maybe these history texts can move on and that pile of historical novels too and let me just alphabetize that and before I knew it, I had a library again, rather than a jumble of books.  It has really been awhile.

I had to move the drum carder first, which kind of tells you how things have been.  Needed doing anyway.....look at this:

Definitely time for some housecleaning.

So once I cleared a shelf or two I started filling it with this jumble of unread things. 

Some of these I have owned for a decade or more, some for only a few weeks.  I'm aiming to make a decision about each one - read it, or send it on.  How long will it take you think?  3 years? 10?  Forever?

With all the book shoving about, not as much knitting as originally planned.  But this is still moving along quickly. 

Comments

[nancy]

This is practically my first response to a blog - drawn here via Y.H. - but I am compelled to join other former-readers-now-knitting. I'm so relieved to know there are fellow travellers into this strange and dangerous country. Fifty years of bookishness, now displaced by fiber obsession. I hesitate to admit that yarn actually has displaced books on shelves and fiction purchases are being outstripped by purchases related to knitting. Were it not for books on tape, I think I would lapse altogether into an internal dialogue consisting of the current pattern!

[Lucille]

The thing with the reading happened to me, too. I can't even get through a book of fictions at all now. Go figure.

[Amber]

Hello - I'm new to your blog (via the yarn harlot). Last year I had to get rid of eight bookcases of books due to emigrating (kind of wishing I hadn't now as I'm hoping to go back..) BUT mostly I don't miss them all that much. Here are my brutal criteria for getting rid of them. Find a charity bookstore or book sale (you will get next to nothing from a second-hand bookstore or may even get book credit for them, which defeats the point...) Then let them go unless:

1. Is it out-of-print or otherwise difficult to get? Yes, it's kind of dumb to get rid of a book and then re-buy it, but COULD I buy Jane Austen again if I REALLY wanted to? Yes.
2. Is it a childhood favourite (usually also out of print)or one I re-read more than once?
3. Was it a gift or does it have some special meaning to me?

This narrowed it down to 2 boxes of books.
Oh! There is also a fun way to get rid of your books; go to www.bookcrossing.com and free them into the wild!

[Gina C.]

Hi - you might have fun with the Bookcrossings website. I think it's www.bookcrossings.com ...but maybe googling it would be best. You release some of your books 'out in the wild' by leaving them in fairly conspicuous places like coffee shops, bus stations, doctors' waiting rooms, anywhere you can imagine pretty much. Then you can check the website later to see if someone has found and read your released books. You can also check on that site to see if any books have been released by others into the wild in your area that you might want to try to find...a fun and worthwhile program for sharing books, except that it might take time away from knitting!

[Serenknitity]

I urge you to try to get on with audio books - either from the library, unabridged natch, or downloaded. I think of it as a delicious way of multi-tasking. I hardly read actual books, now, maybe just a page or two before my eyelids droop at night. I also think we should all learn to feel less guilty about stash / unread books. It's meant to be pleasure we're doing this for, right?

[k]

You used to blog, too.

[Romi]

Books on tape. That's the answer. ;)

[Carol]

Sounds a little like me, cept I have way more dust.

[alison]

Gosh that last comment sounded much more bossy than I meant it to be.
i think your post touched a nerve.

[alison]

Ooh you have Peter Ackroyd's London- fantastic book.
For a start I would stop beating yourself up that you're knitting more than you're reading or vice versa. It's not an either/or thing and there's no-one you have to be(Can you tell I had this conversation with myself over the last year?). Some weeks I knitknitknit, some weeks (esp. if work's been tough) I just want to pick up a book, so I do.
But Allison is right - never let go of the georgette heyers/agatha christies/dorothy l.sayers/comfort reads because
if you do some day you'll want to re-read them and then you'll have to buy them all again. Ask me how I know.

[farm-witch]

OHwee, that sweater looks great. Nice to see I'm not the only one who has to 'move the drum carder' before using a space these days.

[Rachel]

My guess: a life time, a book collection is at least as good as a yarn stash don't you agree?

[Allison]

Ok, I'm bi. Can I just admit that here? Sometimes I just need to knit. The passion is there and nothing else will satisfy. I try to be straight, or circular usually, but I just can't help myself. The urge, the physical need for reading just creeps it's way back in. For a time, I can only read. Drinking in the words, the stories, the symbols, the characters. Those knitting projects feel abandoned, I'm sure. And they wonder how they got stuck with such a deviant. But then, I'm satiated from the reading. I feel reinvigorated for the knitting. I know that I'm bringing so much more creativity and passion that my knitting can feel it and can forgive me. It's hard to be bi-relaxual.

Alright, alright, I got a little carried away there. But I do find the two pursuits to be complementary though incompatible. I haven't enjoyed audio books, so I've stuck to reading. For me, the books - whether fiction or not - are feeding data into my introspection and the knitting is when that data is processed. It's simply challenging to allot enough time for both. Perhaps, one day, a book will tell me how to bend time and the process will require knitting...

[lanea]

I've fallen in love with audiobooks recently--reading while knitting without having to handle an actual book is wonderful. It's not perfect for all books of course, but it makes my commute a lot more enjoyable. And they all come from the library, so they're free and they don't stay in our already packed library.

Since I've been on this very austere book diet, I've been pretty good about deciding to stop reading books I don't like pretty early on.

[Angie]

Don't get rid of the Georgette Heyers, is what I think; I had to re-acquire them all after an ill-judged purge many years ago. (And you may know that Regency Buck has a Juno reference as well. If, as GH said, everything about her was there in her books, she was a big girl. I, on the other hand, would not strike you as other than short. )

My secret for book storage is to put a layer of paperbacks behind the hardcovers; they don't bother me so much if the shelves look less chaotic. However, for that you have to have deep bookshelves, so your mileage may vary.

I don't see any Margery Allingham, but then when I enlarge the picture the bottom shelf is off the screen.

Yes, of course, when the knitting and spinning move in, the reading moves out. The balance may readjust eventually...I don't have an answer, myself, except that after a while I decided that I had read all the good ones.

[Marin]

I used to read seven to ten books a week. Various things (knitting not the least) dropped me to nearly nothing for awhile. I'm back to two or three books a week.

But every time I go into my vast library to cull or mull, I get swept up in a book or two and I don't get very far. It's the same thing that happens when I clean closets: commune with long-lost friends, stop to peruse a forgotten book, examine old favourite clothes for potential use... voila! An weekend through the hourglass with very little to show.

I don't know if I wish on you that you're nothing like me, or that you really enjoy the process to its ten-year potential.

Tangent: I love Foucault's Pendulum. I may have to go find my copy.

[Dr. Steph]

I've pretty much stopped reading for pleasure. Grad school and a post-doc did me in. I feel like I need a highlighter to read and that's not fun. I will read almost-trash or very light literary fiction (really light) sometimes but I would rather watch tv after a day of reading stuff for work than a book.

Though that makes me feel a bit unread. Since reading novels and non-fiction are still a mark of learnedness and gives you something to talk about at cocktail parties. Mind you I tend to go to a lot more stitch'n'bitches than cocktail parties...

Tell me the books you love, I might try to read one!

[seizuresalad]

My masters degree ruined books for me for a long time, I started associating reading with stress. Funny that, because my undergraduate degree really opened books up for me in a wonderful way. I'm just leveling out now.

Lately I have been on a biography kick. I'm a musician and I can't stop reading musician biographies, esp. of the early punk scene. Before that it was letting go of hundreds of pulp SF novels from 20 years ago to make way for some of the classics I always wanted but never bought.

[heather]

the discovery of the book thing (bookthing.org) while visiting the in-laws in baltimore revolutionized my bookshelves. you give them books (for free), you take books (as many as you want, for free). that's it. when i wasn't feeling guilty about how much i spent on something, it made me so much more willing to set it free for others to read and enjoy and accept that i wasn't going to read it. ever. also a great way to explore authors whose work i probably wouldn't pick up otherwise. i think ever city needs one.

[Sarah]

My brain is to foggy to comment intelligently. I think it is another sign that my lack of reading has affected my mind. Whatever process you choose, I think you will get through it at the right speed. I adore your sweater!

[cari]

What Webbo said.

Infinite Jest makes a fine doorstop.

[Bev]

I suffer from exactly the same fate. I love to read-- but I love to knit lace-- which I cannot do while reading a book. I have managed not to miss a blog entry from countless blogs, mostly while doing the purl rows or the occassional garter stitch project. I spend a lot of time reading blogs and I blame that time eater for my lack of book completion. Also, it seems like most of the authors I used to read are now writing crap and it is hard to find new, great books. Good luck with the stacks. Bev

[Chris]

I get twitchy if my reading stash gets too low... :) Teaching myself to read while I knit was the best thing ever!

[Laurie]

Too much making hollering demands on our time, not enough of the time for the hollering. It's a good thing AND a bad thing.

[Webbo]

As someone who supposedly reads books for a living, this post hits pretty close to home. I can, however, knock a big chunk out of that bookcase if you're willing to accept my review of Infinite Jest, which is quite possible the least enjoyable reading experience I have ever had. Read DFW's journalism, his short stories, read Pynchon or Gaddis, but IJ is just asking for too much of your life to be spent poring over tiny print, obscure narrative, and a plethora of show-off footnotes. DFW owes me a summer for that one and I'm not forgetting it.