Books tell stories, not just within their pages, but to those on the outside looking in.
I am fascinated by books.
I am fascinated by people who have all sorts of books.
Old books, new books, fiction, non-fiction, biography, history, auto-biography, poems, short stories, art books, travel books...any and all types of books.
Personally I do not have an inordinate amount of books, but I do have a small portion that I have decided that are keepers and 'show and tell' for others to gander at.
Some people have a lot of books because after the class that had required them was finished, they simply decided it was easier to keep then try to sell back for two dollars, myself included. Some people get a lot of books for birthdays, holidays and other special events. Some people have books quite simply because they like to read and want to fill their beautiful minds up with as much as they possibly can about any, everything and all in between.
It isn't so much the reasonings as to why a person has a large amount of books, it is what they are and how they are arranged that intrigue me the most.
I love just going up to the shelves and just reading the titles of these paper treasures. No particular order, whatever catches my eye. Run my fingers down the spine of the book as I try to decipher what it may be about and if it is interesting enough to pull out to inspect further. Books tell you something about a person. They give you a snapshot of a person's mind, their history, and even a glimpse of their future. Books hint at what a person likes, what they learned, what they inspire to be, what they want to do, where they want to go and why they may act they way they act.
Most people have a method to their book arranging madness. Some like it in perfect symmetrical, size, shape and order. Others do it by authors or title, in alphabetical order. I have even seen books arranged by ISBN number (like whoa!), that was NOT at the library. Some books are just scattered on a shelf, clinging to the pine boards to keep their place, trying to avoid the inevitable fall to the floor. Some books are on shelves with no order, just packed like sardines in a can, all different shapes and sizes, tightly mushed into their wooden/metal/plastic holding container until one day they are removed to feed the mental hunger of their owner.
I have experienced books arranged in so many different formats. Recently I witnessed the first arrangement of books by color. Now I know that this isn't something new, but I was taken back by it. You know the whole saying "Never judge a book by it's cover", well this arrangement was doing just that, yet it was celebrating it, no judging involved. The person who had done the arrangement was taking the talent that others had bestowed upon the books hard or paperback wrapping and flying its flag of color in such an artful form, that I found myself just mesmorized by the art and colors and not just the words of the books. This arrangement showed me that this person valued not just the inside knowledge that the book possessed but the colorful identity of the book itself. There is value in the art of the book, not just the art of words.
It takes all types of books to make up a packed shelf. It takes all types of people to read those packed shelves. It takes certain people to read past the words and see whole picture.
In the end, sometimes we need to place the book back on the shelf and take a step back and enjoy the rainbow that is in all of us through knowledge. All different shapes, sizes, ages, and colors in all of our artful formats...
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