What does 2014 have in store for us?

6/1/2014

This week, many of us are back to our day jobs, our other jobs or just trying to entertain kids for the school holidays. The two weeks of the “holiday break” are always interesting. We try to do so many things. We try to relax. We try to catch up with those friends and family we have not seen all year. We try to garden.

I always try to pack up the year and have a “clean-up”. Well, I have to confess, the clean-up has not been so successful this time round. I have culled clothes and shoes – but there is so much more to do. I know that it is time to do a book cull – that is the hardest to do. I do love books !

Well I just do.

What do you find the hardest to cull?

DC

3 Comments

kim

5/2/2014 10:54:42 am

Children.

Oooops, now that was just wrong.

Yes, clothing brick a brack and the general detritus of life gathers all around us, it grows at an alarming rate, kitchen draws gather implements that the Spanish Inquisition had never dreamed of and our cupboards secrete clothing that some times may have even been worn by the Inquisition, it has lay undetected that long.
The men folk have hoards of objects that lurk in corners of sheds in the hope that one day they will come in handy.
And the Ladies, well they have spare handbags, and shoes just in case of that special unexpected outing.
But all of these are just items that can be dealt with.
Reality or fashion will dictate that.
Most are dispensable and heavens how much of it can be consumed by the Salvation Army or other groups of charities only to eager to pass on a bit of history to gain it a new life.
Ahhh!! but books are a different matter, they lie on shelves in their own specially constructed homes, or under beds, in corners, behind chairs, on tables, have special places in the small room, where all serious reading is digested and spat out. They hide in boxes and drawers, and behind opened doors.
Some are lucky enough to have their own rooms.
They look at us and remind us of times and places, people and faces, those still with us and those who have past on.
They remind us of where we have been, and some beckon us to places we have yet to go.
Bought books, present books, childhood books, found books and inherited books.
Childrens books, art books, car, cat and dog books.
Novels great and small, travel and drama books.
Books to cook by, books to sleep by, stretch the brain, and shed a tear by.
Culling books is probably the most difficult task in the cleansing of ones life.
They are tactile reminders to us of the lives we lead and the times in which we lived.
The next generation will be able to do with our personal books as they please, as they will have not the connection, it will be an easy task for the young.
They may spare a few of the titles as these are their memory too, but the rest will find a new life in second hand shops or recycled and mulched to come back as paper renewed or for the loo.
So keep your books and do not cull
Just build them a room in which you may mull
All the memories they bring in their covered hides
Await your finger tips, to open, and read inside.
.............. kk

deb

5/2/2014 03:50:04 pm

Oh yeh, Lifeline and Smith Family have scored well recently. But the books are being left until last and the cull will be emotional !! DC

kim

6/2/2014 07:57:39 am

I posed the same question to a friend who is a librarian and book fiend.

Here is her reply:

When I spent 2 years in Melbourne, I often thought of all my books sitting there at home with no-one to look at them, even just casting one’s eyes over all the spines lined up on the shelves. Then I heard that Barry Humphries believed that our book miss us. I’m not sure what will happen to them in the future, what with Kindle etc.

Now how does that make you feel?
Maybe if our books were animate they would cull us!
........... kk

What does 2014 have in store for us?

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