End of Storage Note:
Stacks
14 March 2019
My idea was to stack the contents of the five boxes of books according to the bookcases into which they would have to be fit, but in the event I instinctively categorized them: biography, criticism, and so on. This yielded a modest pile of fiction and a much smaller one of history, the two kinds of book that have their own dedicated bookcases. There are also two books about music — Elisabeth Schwarzkopf’s memoir and a history of music histories — that might be wedged onto the shelf dominated by Mozart (about whom I seem to have more books than about all other composers combined); but that’s not counting the biography of Ravel by Roger Nichols that I had to put down because the portrait of its subject was so unattractive, and that I can keep as a biography but not as a music book.
Books of biography, by the way, like books of criticism, are shelved in various places, in both the book room and the living room. The height of the book places a non-negligible role in the just-where.
There is a too-tall pile of books that don’t immediately fit into any category.
But the boxes have all been emptied and thrown away. The books are stacked on tray tables in the living room. (The foyer is still dominated by the two racks of clothes.) Discouragingly, few books strike me as obvious candidates for the discard bags. On the contrary, I was delighted to see that I hadn’t got rid of Frances du Plessix Gray’s Them, the acidulous memoir of her mother and stepfather that breathes the true atmosphere of mid-century Gotham glamour — and presents the reader with the bill.
Nevertheless, a great deal of progress has not been made. I take consolation in the temporarily warmer weather