The best disease bar none

Last weekend I visited the home of a gentleman who is afflicted with as far as I am concerned, the best disease one could possibly have: Bibliomania. In the book A Passion for Books, edited by Harold Rabinowitz, there is a page entitled "Bibliolexicon" which describes a Bibliomaniac as "A book lover gone mad". My dictionary gives the definition of Bibliomania as an "extreme preoccupation with collecting books". That would certainly describe this gentleman. Of course he doesn't look crazy at all. It's just his home that's a little crazy; good crazy that is. Every room in the house, as far as I could make out, is jam-packed with books; books on shelves, on tables, on chairs, and of course, on the floors, so it was sometimes a challenge to move around the house with ease. But you won't find me complaining about it. For in our own home, save for our closets, every room (including, or perhaps especially, the bathroom) has books in it. As I write this in our computer rooom, (which my husband has quite frankly taken over) there are five bookcases overflowing with book matter, as well as six large piles of books arranged on the floor (almost all the books in this room are his I might add, including those piles). Both of us bring books into the house much faster than we can ever possibly read them. We get excited about books, recommend books to each other, argue about books, sleep with books, and both have a secret fantasy to one day write a book. Every now and then the husband will say "enough!" and go through his collection, anguishing over which books to give up and donate to various charities in the city. For a brief period of time we will experience a small amount of breathing room, but we both know it won't last; soon enough he will bring more books home, exclaiming what amazing treasures they are, essential to our collection, etc., and I will nod my head, knowing full-well that I am married to a man afflicted with an incurable disease that I myself also brought into this union. If we were to ever procreate, I often wonder what the end result would be.

For those interested in the subject of book-lovin' and bibliomania, I recommend these titles:

Among the Gently Mad: Strategies and Perspectives for the Book-Hunter in the 21st Century by Nicholas A. Basbanes

A Gentle Madness: Bibliophiles, Bibliomanes, and the Eternal Passion for Books by Nicholas A. Basbanes

Patience and Fortitude: Wherein a Colorful Cast of Determined Book Collectors, Dealers, and Librarians Go About the Quixotic Task of Preserving a Legacy by Nicholas A. Basbanes

A Splendor of Letters : The Permanence of Books in an Impermanent World by Nicholas A. Basbanes

A Pound of Paper: Confessions of a Book Addict by John Baxter

Sixpence House: Lost in a Town of Books by Paul Collins

Ex Libris : Confessions of a Common Reader by Anne Fadiman

And I leave you with this little piece I wrote a couple years back, which I placed on a bookmark I created:
"She could not walk past any book store without stepping in, if only briefly, to gaze at the titles and touch the crisp new covers. It was a disorder or sorts, she knew, like a compulsive tourettic tic that had to be completed in order to feel whole."

Comments

[michele]

I love...simply LOVE this post. I have been to homes with no books (very sad) and homes over-run with books (simply delightful). This "book disease" is uncurable - and even if it were I would not wish treatment. The gentleman's home that you visited and your home seems perfectly wonderful to be. There should be a decorating magazine called Better Homes and Books - because books do indeed make a home better.

[Susanne Jasmin]

Just be surfing around in net. I definitely fpund a very informal place with a lot of good stuff for everybody. I will
certainly visit your site again sometime. Really good work.

[indigo]

That little description you wrote perfectly describes ME! Oh no...I have a disorder...how odd! LOL!

[nafeesa]

yes, yes, I have the same problem. Two new bookshelves have just been ordered for my cluttered home. I have a day off from work today...so I spent the morning finishing a book begun last night, and now I'm off to that marvellous thing, a publishers' sale. Sometimes my addiction worries me, in the sense that I fear that with all this reading I might lose my sight by the time I'm sixty, but it's a bit like occassionally worrying about cancer while smoking a cigarette. I can't stop! Have you read Marilyn French's "A Year in Hell", which is about her battle with cancer? Well, there's the moment when she has to face the idea that she is, indeed, going to die. And the first thing she has to come to terms with is that now she really will not read all the books she wants to.
I could go on, but all I'll say is that I love books with a passion that no one I know in my circle shares (a passion sadly out of fashion in New Delhi) and also that I love the marvellous, wonderful, brilliantly descriptive English language, the greatest literary language in the world.

[bibliobibuli]

i love this too ... oh the search for shelf space and then the search for space for even more shelves ...

i have books in almost every room too inc my bathroom

i'm about to begin a major reorganisation of my library to try to squeeze in the books i've bought over the past year