“Remainders” are books that the bookstore reduces in price in an effort to unload them before they have to be returned to the publisher. They’re hot books that cooled off, books that were supposed to be hotter than they actually were, or books that were never really that hot to begin with. Let’s face it, they’re the reject pile, the 99-cent CD bin, only the remainder table less reliably contains that occasional find whereby the nostalgia factor makes the price truly a bargain. The remainder tables never includes the literary equivalent of the Thompson Twins’ follow up to Here’s to Future Days or Frente!’s Marvin the Album. Honestly, I’m not even sure what the literary equivalent of such finds would be. Anne Rice’s biography of Jesus? Glenn Beck’s thriller? In any case, the best the books on the remainder table can hope for is to flesh out the skeletal bookshelf on a stage set somewhere. At least that way they’ll be put to some use.
My shelves at home are lousy with remainders. Not necessarily titles that were designated as such by the bookstore, but personal remainders. Books I’ve picked up along the way for whatever reason—gifts, impulse buys, opportunity buys, well-known titles by authors I should read, lesser-known titles by authors I do read, movie editions of films I like, movie editions of films I never saw because I wanted to read the book first, movie editions of films that I bet the book was better, research for plays written and un-, books purchased in a fit of self-improvement, to fill a gap in my education, to round out a collection, books that people loaned me and that I never returned, that qualified an order for free shipping. I’m not sure of the ratio of read to unread—five to one, maybe; maybe four—but I do know that I’m confronted by them every time I walk into my son’s room and see two bloated bookshelves casting shadows over his beloved puzzles and cars. I see them encroach. I understand the premium of space, particularly in the city. Yet, to my continued surprise, I hear myself arguing for their relevance every time my wife and I have the latest version of the storage conversation.
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| Not my shelves, but not too far off. |
Right now the storage space that we rent includes things that can fairly be called “shared”: camping equipment, mainly, an inflatable mattress that takes up a lot more room than you think when it’s deflated, maybe some lawn chairs. But we recently cleared out what passes for a “receiving room” in a New York City apartment to make room for my new bike, a generous Father’s Day gift that delights to no end on the weekend but that passes as a poor imitation of even the most liberal definition of “adornment” during the week. All kinds of tchotchkes went into storage to make room for the bike, nearly all of them hers: remembrances from her teaching days, gifts from her mother, vacation pictures, even a Wedding Day photo. A whole shelf boxed up, and in its place a bike vertical to the wall, a child carrier for the bike, three helmets, sweat-fossilized gloves, an air pump, a dirt-encrusted water bottle, somehow still more room for a stroller and some of Jonah’s outdoor toys, various rubber balls, a plastic bucket and shovel. The closet door still opens, but barely. It’s not a receiving room anymore; it’s a mud room, the equivalent of a shed out back in the Midwest, only it’s not out and it’s up front.
And what sacrifices have I made to clear room for our ever-accumulating lives? Well, did I mention that the CD’s are under the bed?
“What about the books?
“What about them?
“Do you think maybe we could reduce them to one shelf?”
Shaking my head.
“I’m not talking about burning them. I’m talking about putting them in storage.”
“It’s damp there. They’ll get all moldy.”
“It’s not damp.”
“It’s storage. It’s dank and it’s cold.”
“Have you even been to the storage space?”
Silence.
Her again: “And, besides, they’re books, not puppies.”
“Still.”
“Do you really need them all?”
Of course not.
“Yes.”
“All of them.”
No.
“Yes.”
“We can’t get rid of any of them? Not even ‘get rid of.’ Box up.”
Sure we can.
“No.”
“Not any of them?”
Yes.
“No.”
“None of them?”
Yes.
“No.”
“Oh, my god.”
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| What happens to books in storage...I just know it. |
She leaves the room, gets as far away from me as possible, though even that is still within earshot of a normal speaking voice. Jonah sits on the floor. He uses my copy of Henry Fielding’s Joseph Andrews as a ramp for one of his Matchbox cars. (Incidentally, the Joseph Andrews was picked up during a mid-semester run to the previously mentioned Dickson Street bookstore in Fayetteville when I remembered how much I enjoyed Tom Jones and resolved to read more Fielding. This was 1999. I haven’t read it yet. But one day….)
I don’t know how to say it other than getting rid of books feels like a loss. And I don’t mean a loss of will. It’s not about stubbornness, or, at least, it’s not only about stubbornness. Instead, it feels like a loss of something more. Something essential. Let’s just leave it at that.
“All of these books mean something? All of them?”
“Yes.”
“They’re all indispensable?
“Yes.”
Prove it.
That’s me there, obviously, not her. The “prove it.” It’s a challenge to myself. One I’d like to accept. I’m going to put a moratorium on further book accumulation, and I’m going to read the un-read books from my shelf. Not only that, but I’m going to write about them as well, and in so doing, I hope to prove that, not only do the remainders have value, but a book is more than the sum of its words, that the manner in which it was acquired, the circumstances that brought it to your attention and eventual possession, these all inform your reading experience in ways that are inextricable from the content itself, in ways that are consequently lost if your reading restricts itself to forms that have no spines. I may never have revisited these titles had they not been staring me in the face for the past however many years rather than residing in some electronic menu (how many out-of-sight CD go unlistened to). In many cases, these books would have remained unacquired by me without the physicality to acquire.
The Beach Reads will appear after every two major entries. They will be determined by a vote of the readers. They are designed to take advantage of the, shall we say, less substantial titles I've accumulated throughout the years.
I hope you visit with each new entry and that when you do you stay awhile. As I've noted elsewhere, I realize that the commitment is considerable. The site is not unlike a good book in this regard (he hopes). My goal is to make it worth your time.
I'm excited to see what I have been missing all these years.
My next book is going to be your next blog post. There is a certain charm to the correlation between your dedication to the way things were and your steadfast refusal to cave to the tweet-sized blog post. Fortunately, it's a worthy read. Really like these first three posts. I am vainly holding on to all my English major books in the hopes that one day I will have a home the size of Joplin (or at least any house in Joplin) and then I can proudly display them all without them being in the way. In the meantime, I'm toying with the idea of posting one book a day on Facebook and whoever snaps it up first, gets it for free. At least it would be a way for me to meet my Facebook friends I've never heard of, or those I actually know. What do I need these books for, so I can give them to Emily, who will probably tell me to jump off and buy her a shiny new one? I'm certainly not reading them again. If I want to, I'll go to the library, which I ain't too proud to do.
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