Packing My Library: An Elegy and Ten Digressions | 
pickI love anything by Alberto Manguel. 📖
Many literary and philosophical references were over my head but I love hearing his musings on reading, books and libraries. And an extra little love for the fact that he‘s Argentinian born but identifies as Canadian 🇦🇷🇨🇦
Reading his books definitely inspires me even more to embrace my love of reading and libraries
#LastFirst @BookNAround
The last book I finished this year was appropriately enough,about an author musing on packing his collection of books and all the various fresh beginnings he has had in his life.Lovely and compelling.
The first book I will start will be a biography of Isabella La Catolica.
Happy new year!!
Who wants to come over and pack ALL of these for me? Anyone? ANYONE? The movers are going to curse me.
"...my library, which by then had grown to thirty-five thousand books." ? The Boyfriend can no longer say I have too many books! ? I don't have nearly that many! #LifeGoals ?
In our house, Monday night is family reading night. I‘m feeling exhausted. I hope I can stay awake for the next couple of hours to start this one.
pickBeautiful book about books.
Even the chicken likes this book...
...large enough to accommodate my library, which by then had grown to thirty-five thousand books. I thought that once the books had found their place, I would find mine.
pick“The imaginary reality of books contaminates every aspect of our life.” So true! How often do you find your mind drifting to the characters in a book while going about your day? Their imaginary reality really does stick with you even when you‘re not actively reading. An insightful and thoughtful read about moving a personal library of 35,000 volumes from France to Manhattan.
#bookwormproblems #personallibrary #albertomanguel
I love how instead of loaning out a book from his personal library, Manguel buys a new copy to hand out if he wants someone to read the book.
Three more boxes of books packed - the other 6 big boxes I got from work are in the car that‘s at the shop because someone hit it yesterday, so I guess that‘ll have to do for now. It‘s not just my books anymore, though - packing my boyfriend‘s books up, too. #moving #icantwaittomove #onemoremonth #countdownhasbegun
1️⃣ That's what my street looks like. -19ºC today.
2️⃣ I love love love the house. I hate the suburbs.
3️⃣ I think I read it in February. I think.
4️⃣ Any minute I have I read.
5️⃣ I wish I knew!
#friyayintro @howjessreads
#friyayintro @howjessreads
1️⃣ Star Trek tie-in novels.
2️⃣ Nope! But next Monday is off, so we *might* go to family day at my game group.
3️⃣ ⬆️
4️⃣ Nope!
5️⃣ ?
ETA: Re №4, I can read a text in Roman-type alphabet in every direction. Upside down, backwards, flipped, whatever. If it's in "Roman" I can read it.
pickThis is by far as his most personal book, recounting how in 2014, he had to move away from France. They packed his beloved 35000+ books to store them in Montréal. In reflecting on what libraries mean to people, what they mean to him, he explores what it is that rooms full of books do to us readers. ⬇️
Almost seven months ago, my husband and I moved from Illinois to start new jobs and settle down in Washington state.
Now we're doing it all over again except this time... we're moving out of our apartment and into our OWN HOME!!!! 😃🏡😍
In the wise words of Mr. Kate (of book and YouTube fame), OMG We Bought a House!
Let the book packing commence!
pick“If every library is autobiographical, its packing up seems to have something of a self obituary.”
I enjoyed these fragmentary musings about books and reading so much that I listened twice to the #audiobook performed by James Cameron Stewart. It‘s only about 4 hours long.
I had on the shelves dozens of very bad books which I didn‘t throw away in case I ever needed an example of a book I thought was bad.
(Author photo from Internet)
Translators, perhaps more than any other wordsmiths, know this. Whatever we build out of words can never seize, in its entirety, the desired object.
In literature, dreams often serve to bring the impossible into the fabric of everyday life, like mist through a crack in the wall. Unfortunately, it often happens that dreams are brought in as an alibi for the unbelievable plot.
It was slow going on foot through today‘s heavy snowfall, but my neighbour let me know that our local bakery is offering a 25% discount because of the weather, so off I went, listening to a new audiobook. Friday is the only day they make sourdough rye at this bakery. It was worth the trek!
P.S. This is a full colour, unmodified photo.
Finished packing up all the books for our upcoming move. Moving is literally the only time I‘m happy about not having a large personal library. I took entirely too long just packing two shelves worth of books. 😂
Help! I need your votes one more time to break a few ties for my #MakeMeReadIt challenge in November. You already chose my first place winner: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. 🙌🏻Persuasion is holding second place by a mere 2 votes and rest are waiting for your verdict. Thanks for your help. After finally finishing Les Mis, all my choices this time are less than 300 pages. 😁
@TheReadingMermaid
pick"The discovery of the art of reading is intimate, obscure, secret, almost impossible to explain, akin to falling in love, if you will forgive the maudlin comparison. It is acquired by oneself alone, like a sort of epiphany, or perhaps by contagion, confronted by other readers."
Manguel opens by discussing/mourning the dismantling of his beloved library in France. He details the aftermath & the surprising events in what he assumed would be the ?
It begins... #moving
pickWonderful book of musings that Manguel shares as he discusses what it was like packing his library of over 35,000 volumes. As for each of us, some books have a profound affect on us and Manguel tends to return to those examples like Alice in Wonderland and Don Quixote in several of his own books. I read this in May so I can‘t remember all the anecdotes that made me love this book, but it spoke to me. I felt akin to his words and I love this book.
pickAlberto Manguel needed to move from France where he housed a 35,000-volume personal library to a one-bedroom apartment in New York City. As he processes and purges, he reflects on the nature and importance of reading, libraries, and literature. A beautifully written and thoughtful book that will make librarians and readers cheer. Highly recommended.
1. 7, I think
2. ~550kms, Ottawa to Waterloo
3. I have just over 1k books right now, so maybe about 50? I'm terrible at estimating
4. Yes, we will probably move again sometime in the near future
5. Haven't used them before, but planning to for next move.
@JoScho good luck with your packing!
32 boxes packed. I estimate we‘ll need 75 boxes to ship our books from Puerto Rico to Florida.
“It may be that Books have this reassuring quality because we don‘t really possess them: Books possess us.”
“We read to ask questions.”
~ Kafka ~
Let there be no doubt, that Mr. Alberto Manguel is a person who loves books.
“Lovers can no longer be absent, or acquaintances long gone: at the flick of a finger we can reach them, and they can reach us. We suffer from the contrary of agoraphobia: we have become haunted by a constant presence. Everyone is always here.”
Ohhh my this book. This writer. 💙
“I am haunted by an inexhaustible passion that up to now I have not managed or wanted to quench. I feel that I have never enough books.”
“In the days of my youth for those of us who liked to read, the dictionary was a magical object of mysterious powers. In the first place, because we were told that here, in this small flat volume, was almost the entirety of our common language, that between the drab covers were all the words that named everything in the world.....”
Any other dictionary readers here?
A visual of my library stats as shown on my home page on Library Thing. Currently reading the tagged book
Afternoon reading. 📚
pickThis wasn‘t what I expected at all, but I enjoyed it!
pickAbout the function of (national) libraries, words and reader‘s expectations, more than about the actual packing of Manguel‘s library. Interesting as always: a lot of Borges, Dante, Carroll, the Bible, the library of Alexandria - though in the end you do wish there‘d have been more about the ‘library at night‘.
As we plan our move from PR to FL our main expense will be shipping the books. #TBR
Oh how I've missed you Litsy! MIA all weekend to do lots of packing 😪 Lots of these boxes are my books... I had to repack several Nick did, I love him dearly, but he does not know how to stack books so they don't get damaged 😂
