Recently I received an email that asked something along the lines of "could you please tell me what books we are going to actually talk about in X class." When I read this, I instantly had a reaction that I won't repeat here, but I was shocked that someone would a) imply that I would require books that weren't going to be read/talk about and b) that even if someone thought this, he/she would be ballsy enough to ask. This morning when I was replying to the email, I started thinking about how I use books. I decided that today's post would be about how I interact with those books.
I have books in nearly every room in my house (the bathroom and the laundry room are the only exceptions that I can think of at the moment). I have not read all these books but they are all a part of my everyday life. This is probably largely the result of the fact that I didn't speak until I was quite old (a story for another post) and my parents read to me constantly. I have quotation from Thomas Jefferson on my Facebook page that says "I cannot live without books" and for me it's very true. The email bothered me because it came from someone who I assume doesn't have that perspective.*
For me books fall in several different categories...
Cookbooks: I love cookbooks, but I don't really use recipes. In fact I read cook books for ingredient combos, learn them and then don't generally get them out again. I don't know that I've ever actually made a recipe from a cookbook exactly as stated. For me, I think cookbooks are cathartic because they are both literary and not. I can read to learn, but not feel like it's work.
Classics: my relationship with the canon is complex. I rarely teach canonical works in my classes, but I also feel really bad about selling back a copy that I have. When I was working on my undergrad, I took a class on Shakespeare, and we were required to buy the Riverside Shakespeare. This was the first semester where I ever questioned the practice of selling back books. Have I used the Riverside Shakespeare since that class? No. Have I moved it moved it more than four times in two states? You bet. William Shakespeare doesn't lose money if I sell it, but I feel intensely guilty about selling classics.
Books about Driving: I only decided to add this category because of the number of people who end up on my blog after googling "road trip" and/or "reading" "novel" "adolescent." Books about roads make up a separate part of my books shelf. Sometimes these books are legitimate roadtrips like
John Green's An Abundance of Katherines or
Joan Bauer's
Rules of the Road, and others include a car as a plot device
Notes from a Midnight Driver, but all of these books feature the car as a character. These books go in their own section (or pile) because I use them frequently.
Books that I Can't Live Without: I really like my bookshelf to be alphabetized by author and separated by subject (essentially, I like to live in a library), but until we moved in this house, I would pull certain texts aside. They were my "if my house is on fire, I can't leave without these" books. This is not logical. They could be easily replaced. Some have notes, but most of those even could be replaced. This category is not really genre bound. There are childhood books (
Make Way for Ducklings,
The Secret Garden) and there are theory books (Roberta Trites'
Waking Sleeping Beauty). These books are not necessarily books that I use everyday, but are rather books that represent major moments in my literary life. A picture book that I was obsessed with as a child, a critical text that made me realize people studied children's literature, etc.
Books I Teach: I RARELY teach something that I really loved as a child. Most of my syllabus is better described as books that I read as an adult, so these books don't ever overlap with the previous category. I can tell if a book is a "teaching" copy by the way it looks. Teaching copies are full of post-it notes and have lots of things written inside the front and back covers. I used to write out notes for classes and have discovered that putting my quiz or my bullet points for teaching inside the book is more effective for me.
Books I Buys Because They Are Cheap: This category I'm slightly ashamed of. I have lots of books that are not great, but Scholastic was selling them for $1 at one of their
warehouse sales and there are very few things that I won't spend a dollar on. Most of these books I haven't read, but they stay on my bookshelf in hopes that someday, someone will ask be for a book about X subject, and I will proudly pull a title off the shelf.
Pleasure Reading: I don't know that this is a good title for the category because it doesn't really reflect the value I place on these books. I try and always have a "pleasure" book in addition to required reading and reading for the classes I teach. Many of these books become essential to my dissertation and to my teaching, but they start as pleasure reading. Someone told me to read
Scott Westerfeld's books, so I bought them for this category. These are the books that I read to formulate my ideas for myself not because I "have to" read them.
This is really why I can't answer that student's question because ALL of my books have a purpose and a value for me--even those that I don't read and/or talk about. I still think that the writer of the email that made me think about this was more direct and assertive** than I would have been, but I applaud her for making me spend an afternoon with my books. And, in case you are wondering, we are going to talk about all of the books on my booklists this fall. :)
*before you tell me it's likely an economic thing, I want to clarify that I have been the poor college student majoring in English and I get the cost of books, but I would make other sacrifices to buy the books. Eating out=optional; Books=required. (at least for me)
**Maybe I should recommend course in politeness theory
We've always gotten quite a bit of junk mail, but since we bought our house last year, our junk mail levels have reached new highs. In any given week 2-3 companies want to sell us mortgage protection, our mortgage company wants us to refinance and/or take out a home equity loan, a handful of local business want to take care of our lawn, and other churches, banks, pizza companies, and grocery stores want to welcome us "to the neighborhood."