The Guilty Pleasure of Burning Books - Andrew Crofts






“Do we need to keep all those editions of every book you’ve ever written?” my wife enquired as we stood together in the cellar staring at the pile of satisfyingly tightly sealed plastic crates that she had packed the books in some years before to protect them from possible damp-attack – and to clear a few shelves upstairs. “I could really use those boxes.”

“Chuck out books?” I asked, horrified. I mean, that’s my life’s work sealed away in there.

“Think you could sell them?” she asked. “Or give them away?”

A bit rude, I thought.

“I mean,” she snapped open a lid and passed me a book, “do you even know what language that is?”

I opened the book in the hope that I would spot the name of a city or something that would give me a clue. It all looked a bit Eastern European, but I couldn’t be sure which bit.

“Could be Romanian,” I ventured.

“Do we know any Romanians who could confirm that? There’s the Hungarian au pair next door, or the Polish family down at the farm. Do you want to offer them a chance at identifying their own languages?”

I was getting the point. Over the last thirty or so years publishers from all over the world have been generously sending me parcels of books as they came off the presses. Thirty years ago I wanted to hang onto every one because in those days you never knew when they might go out of print – “Fly Fishing by J.R. Hartley” and all that. But now, with print-on-demand and Kindle and all the rest the same hardly applies.

So what were the options? The local charity shop? I doubted if they wanted to be cluttered up with yet more old books, particularly in foreign languages. Down to the tip? Possibly. But what about making use of them? What about burning them?

“Book burning” sounds so emotive, conjuring up images of Nazi and Isis thugs attempting to wipe whole cultures off the face of the Earth. It made it seem like a bit of a guilty pleasure. A well established guilty pleasure for me is the bonfire at the bottom of the garden, which had reached quite precarious heights and would benefit from a little paper stimulation. Or should I use them more productively indoors to eke out the log supply in the open fireplaces? Maybe a bit of both.

So there I stood, beside my flaming mountain of garden detritus, watching book covers – some even bearing portraits of my much younger self, blackening, curling, smoking and finally bursting into flame. A true "bonfire of the vanities" It felt eerily cleansing, plus the added benefit that my wife now had a great many plastic crates to fill with other things that we would be storing for a few years before having a similar conversation all over again.   



Comments

JO said…
Brave man - I get the joy of getting rid of stuff, but books! I'm glad you're not grieving.
Wendy H. Jones said…
I don't think I could do it. I am still trying to work out whether you are brave or foolhardy. Well done for clearing the clutter
Bill Kirton said…
There's a compelling logic about your choice, Andrew, but I don't think I could do it.
Our local university campus sent boxes and boxes of books to landfill when they moved to new premises and revamped their library. And some of them were quite precious. I know because the ones I could rescue are here on my shelves! But I know that book dealers, who buy boxes of old books at auction, dump most of them in the recycling bin and I suppose there isn't much else to be done although I'd find it very hard to burn them myself (I'm half shocked and half admiring!) I still have a huge folder full of my dad's old scientific papers - a lifetime of them. All, now, pretty much out of date. I can't burn them or destroy them, but they aren't much use to anyone either.
Dennis Hamley said…
I fear I shall soon have the same terrible decision to make - or have ìt made for me. Even so, I'm loth to part with an object which, apart from my name on the cover, is virtually unregnisable as a translation of one of my books into Thai. I shall keep it as a rather pleasing artefact.
Lydia Bennet said…
De-cluttering is a liberating experience, 'never getting rid of books' seems to be almost a religion for some people but if you ever downsize, you have to, and it's actually quite pleasant to have the space they take up - if you're not going to read them again, or ever. One's own books, well even then I suppose if there are that many!

Popular posts

A Few Discreet Words About Caesar's Penis--Reb MacRath

Never Mind the Author Workshops, What Shall I Wear on World Book Day 2024? wonders Griselda Heppel

How to Live with the End in Mind: Wendy Mitchell’s Choice -- by Julia Jones

Brain on a Train -- Umberto Tosi

A writer's guide to Christmas newsletters - Roz Morris