So many books...

An elderly friend died recently. He lived alone in an assisted living facility, surrounded by memorabilia and books, hundreds of books.

His friends were left to dispose of his possessions and, of course, the books. More than 400 of them.

I thought of my own books as I sorted through his. Many, many, were unread, like my own. They and their selection spoke of his wide-ranging interests. Germany after the great 20th Century wars, wars’ victims, the agonizing state of Palestine and Palestinians, the great ancient lost cities. He had four Bibles.  He had subscribed to the Folio Book Club. Many of those tomes had arrived in the mail and never been opened. Cellophane still enclosed them.

Boxed books, massive art books, several mysteries, biographies. Most unread.

He was a gentle, unassumingly erudite man. He would, when asked, recall his past and his struggles for human rights and dignity for all. He was gay. In his eighties when I met him, he never mentioned being gay. There seemed no reason to. He was at peace with his life and his world.

His library bespoke him: his fascinations, his passions, his curiosities. His library spoke, yes, volumes, of the privilege it was to know him and the honor to be bequeathed responsibility for these books.

He was a member of our Quaker congregation, and it was clear from his bequest that he wanted us to have and to see that his library was put in good hands. And so we sold them cheaply to Quaker Friends and neighbors. I bought five or six. Among them were a boxed Folio edition of Thomas Paine’s “The Rights of Man,” Calvin Trillin’s warm, evocative “Messages from My Father,” and Jimmy Carter’s impassioned “Palestine. Peace not Apartheid.” I also bought the massive “An Incomplete Education, 3684 things you should have learned but probably didn’t.”

I don’t know whether my friend read any of them. They were clearly well cared for. How many of those 3684 “things” did he absorb? What of the “Rights of Man”? The spines were uncreased except for the Bibles, which may have been handed down for generations, as Bibles often are. The pristine books might have been read. He no doubt cared for his books as he did for all who knew him. As I have said, above all, he was a gentle, deeply caring soul.

Now that I’ve turned seventy, I’ve looked at what I will leave when I die, and what I will have left undone and, yes, unread. I have at least as many books on my shelves. Who will take them, what do they say of me, will they ever be read — by me or anyone else?

Does it matter?

Yes, no and maybe. Especially maybe... You, friends, will decide.

How to prune a literary garden

When I sorted through my books last week to prune those to donate to the annual Hillsdale Used Book Sale (July 26), I discovered several duplicates.

What was I thinking when I bought these “seconds”?

Was I even aware that I already owned one copy?

Consciously or subconsciously, I must have felt that they were worthy of duplication. Or maybe I was simply covering my bets. (Interior monologue: “Did I lend that to someone? Better buy it. I can always give it away if I discover I still have a copy.”)

Well, I’ve vowed that the days of duplication are over and then some. I’m getting this collection down to a size I can manageably read before I’m pruned by the Great Pruner.

One year I went through my books resolved to remove volumes I had no intention of reading — ever. Then I discovered I just liked having them available, in case.

Then I've tried culling books I have actually read. Confession: they are a distinct minority. I'm a painfully slow reader. Of course the mere fact that I’ve read a book doesn’t give me a reason to get rid of it. Who, after reading “1984” or “Walden,” is going to get rid of it?

So this year I considered a new approach to pruning my collection. I considered setting a number, 250, which I planned to keep. Identify those and get rid of everything else, I told myself. In my case, the donation cull would be about 750 books.

It sounds easy until you see the gems buried away in the 750.

So I took a “hybrid” approach. I met nearly half my goal. About 300 books. I filled eight boxes which have been turned over to the sale organizers. The trick now is to vow not buy any of them back at the sale. I know from experience the vow won't be easy to keep.

OK, so what are those duplicates? If I list them, you may understand how I ended up with two of these:

Will Durant: “The Story of Philosophy”

John K. Galbraith’s “The Affluent Society.”

Huston Smith’s “The Great Religions.”

E.F. Schumacher’s “Small is Beautiful.”

Kahlil Gibran’s “The Prophet.:

Strunk & White’s “The Elements of Style” (I had three copies!)

For next year, I'm considering dropping books by a single author. Like Graham Greene or Ray Bradbury or Lewis Thomas or Neil Postman. Described that way, the task sounds more like an up-against-the-wall execution. I have to remember that I'm getting rid of books, not people. Strange how the distinction isn't always clear — as in "Have you read any Bradbury lately" or "I love Hemingway."

A Cascades New Year

Three days and three nights in the Cascades spliced the two years.

Hunkered, we were, between past and future.

A four-mile walk around Black Butte Ranch. The sprawling vacation development strives to fit into its natural setting. A noble human attempt that inevitably comes up humanly short.

Take it for what it is, not what it seeks to be.

Muted houses, mostly vacant, stand off from the road. Pedestrians separated from cars. A detailed trail map. Open space. Vistas. Hidden lakes. Ponds. Paved and plowed paths that follow creeks and contours.

We saw no for sale signs marking these get-away homes. A guess is that such commercial intrusions are as prohibited as garish exterior paint. Who wants to think of foreclosures, bankruptcy and tangerine siding while on a mid-winter get-away?

Black Butte Ranch in these sober times is a happy-face Potemkin mountain retreat.

A numbing windstorm whipped through the Cascades on this New Year’s weekend. It closed the Santiam Pass. No trucks or SUVs got through. We managed without The Oregonian with its news of the new year and reflections on the old.

Ah but the Scrabble, backgammon and books. So many books; so few words for a “Q” when you don't have a “U.”

Our walk was too far yet not far enough. Our muscles ached from effort while our eyes hungered for more.

Between the pain and delight. our mountain ramble was enough.

Just enough.

We stomped through the snow-muffled, wind-whistling wood, too thinned to hide hulking dwellings.

At our own rented threshold, we tramped snow from our boots, then settled next to hearth and fire and reached for the warmth of books and hopes for the new year.

A Library of 25 Books

What I am about to lay before you is a kind of literary Rorschach test result.

It is also a work in progress.

A few days ago I put myself on a “less is more” kick and got to thinking of the few hundred books in my personal library, 75 percent of which I will never read—at last not in their entirety.

Yes, so many books, so little time.

So as an exercise I posed the question: if I could keep only 25 books, which would they be?

As I went about the exercise, I kept a couple of guiding principles in mind. I have even acted on one.

First, I decided to get rid of books I could readily get at a convenient library. The first library that came to mind was the one in our Quaker meeting house. And that led to my first act: I promptly donated nearly all of my Quaker books to the Multnomah Monthly Meeting’s library, thereby freeing about two three feet of space on my shelves.

The second principle violated the first. Although some books on the following list are readily available at the public library, I want to keep them here for ready reference. An arm’s reach away — for an emergency.

I could go into a Rorschach (Freudian?) analysis of the list (Why, for instance, are there so few women authors?), but for now, I’ll simply share them for consideration. As I say, this is a work in progress. I could change my mind about the list in the next week, or in the next five minutes.

Keepers:

The Essays of George Orwell
Meditations — Marcus Aurelius
The National Trust Book of Long Walks in England, Scotland and Wales
The History of Western Philosophy—Bertrand Russell
The John McPhee Reader

The Orwell Reader (Introduction by Richard Rovere)
Small is Beautiful—E.F. Schumacher
Walden — Henry David Thoreau
On Civil Disobedience — Henry David Thoreau
Faith and Practice — the Northwest Pacific Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends

A People’s History of The United States — Howard Zinn
Markings — Dag Hammarskjold
Technopoly — Neil Postman
Conscientious Objections — Neil Postman
Essays of E.B. White

Tao Te Ching — Lao Tzu (Ursula K. Le Guin version)
A Pattern Language — Christopher Alexander et. al. (A study in place-making)
The Group of Seven by Peter Mellin (remarkable Canadian artists from the early 20th Century)
The Jefferson Bible (The new testament freed of “miracle” encrustations. By the third, and most remarkable, president of these United States)

The Essential Rumi
Time and the Art of Living — Robert Grudin
Late Night Thoughts on Listening to Mahler’s Ninth Symphony — Lewis Thomas
Language in Thought and Action (Fifth Edition) S.I. Hayakawa and Alan R. Hayakawa
Leonardo da Vinci, Artist, Scientist, Inventor — Simona Cremante

That’s it. Notably laden with Orwell and Postman and males in general. Fiction is all but missing in action.

How to describe? Mystical, retro, analytical, artistic, contrary, liberal, defiant?

To prove how fluid and tentative the list is, note that the photo includes Non-Violent Resistance by Gandhi (Would Thoreau, who profoundly shaped Gandhi's thinking, suffice?). Gandhi is not on the above list.

And so it goes . . . .

Seven books for the New Year

A windfall in the form of a massively generous holiday check from my mother-in-law prompted me to go on a book-buying binge.

The purchases were made on Amazon, at the downtown Powell’s, and in Multnomah Village at Annie Bloom’s Books and Post-Hip store of used CDs and remaindered books.

Here’s what whim and interest led me to purchase:

Ellen Lupton's “Thinking with Type,” because type is beautiful and, McLuhan-like, conveys a message within the message. The carefully crafted book’s design and illustrations celebrate the topic.

D.J. Taylor’s “Orwell,” which I hope deepens the answer to the question: Why does the world need another biography of Orwell? Before I read the book, my own answer is that the world can never know too much about Orwell and his works...and is in danger of knowing too little.

Jeffrey Sach’s “The End of Poverty,” which was remaindered at Powell’s. A bad sign for a topic of this timely weight. Solemn fact: 15,000 children die of malnutrition and starvation each DAY in Africa. Fifty will have died in the time it takes you to read this post.

“The Lessons of St. Francis,” also remaindered at Powell’s, an equally bad sign for similar reasons relating to our times.

S.J. Perelman’s “The Swiss Family Perelman” with illustrations by the estimable master of line, Al Hirschfeld...also remaindered, a good sign for me. Conclusion: with astonishing flourish, acerbity and accuracy, Perelman was the fastest word slinger in the East.

P.D. James’ “The Children of Men,” proclaims on the cover, “soon to be a MAJOR MOTION PICTURE.” A review of the film, with a description of the plot about a childless world, inspired me to buy the book.

Peachpit Press’s Visual Quick Start Guide to HTML….This one’s for you, dear Red Electric reader. I hope it will tell me, among other things, how to center a photo’s caption and “flush right” its credit line.

This modest pile now teeters atop earlier piles. Because they are on the uppermost stratum, these volumes will be the first I reach for. Either directly or indirectly, I hope to share their eclectic content in the weeks to come.