Confessions of a Bibliophile

Bibliophile - n. a lover of books; one who loves to read, admire, and collect books.

"She reads books as one would breathe air, to fill up and live." Annie Dillard

I get wonderful books to read every year on Christmas and on my birthday. Last month I was given a wonderful assortment of G.K. Chesterton, Evelyn Waugh, and George Macdonald. Tenderly I placed them on the to-read stack on my bookshelf. I treat all my books, especially the newest additions to my collection, with love and care. There's something special about adding a newly obtained book to my shelf, and then standing back and admiring how good it looks there. Admiring my bookshelf is one of my guilty pleasures, to be honest.

I am especially proud of the top section of my bookshelf, which houses all of which I call my beautiful books. They really are beautiful. They're the second hand, gorgeously bound, heavenly smelling, beautifully written, old classic books that I am in love with. Some of them, such as ones by Dickens, I have a hard time getting through so I haven't actually fully read them... but they sit there anyways because they're so nice to look at.

I have a matching collection of seven Jane Austen novels I love. I bought them all for literally $2.65. Yes, you read that right. I had been studying in the little library of an island where my Oma owns a cabin, and there was a woman there getting the place ready for a book sale. She said I was free to look around even though the sale hadn't started yet. I found the Austen set, and was saddened to see I only had $2.65 in change on me. The kind lady took pity on me and said I could have the set for this amount, for the book sale was by donation, anyway. Happily (and a little guiltily) I skipped off with these beautiful seven books in my arms. They now sit on display on a piece of driftwood I screwed to the wall - it makes a neat wall decoration, I think.

I currently have a job as a library page, which in almost every way is boring, except for the fact that my knowledge of authors and titles has grown substantially, not to mention I get to take home free books to keep. This is because I get first dibs on all of the old library books and donations that the library is selling, and as part of staff, there are special privileges such as not having to pay for these books. I don't know if this is actually a thing, but a librarian gave me permission and said that all the staff does it, so I'm just going with it. So yes, my job (which usually consists of just shelving books) is very boring, but I absolutely love it because of the free books!

One of my favourite bookstores is one that happens to be just down the road from me. Owned by a retired man, he has set up his old garage into the most wonderful little space crammed full of used books. He sits there with his feet up on his desk, spectacles on the end of his nose, and piles of books teetering around his head, with the classical radio station playing softly in the background. (I hope you just pictured that in your head, because it is a wonderful scene). He used to price books at $1-3 a book, but has now raised his prices to $2-4. I'm not complaining, they're still great deals. I tend to avoid going here, though, because I always end up with so many books that he has to give me a box to carry them in.

However, it's because of these wonderful old bookstores and the privileges of my job that I have a bit of a problem on my hands. I take home far more books than I possibly have time to read. And I am completely out of room on my bookshelf. I don't know what I'm going to do.

If you're curious... here is my reading list for the next twenty books I plan on reading (not necessarily in order, and also not including various religious books which I always try to have on the go).

That Hideous Strength - C.S. Lewis
The Abolition of Man - C.S. Lewis
Crusade of Tears - C.D. Baker
The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - A.C. Doyle
Gone With the Wind - Margaret Mitchell
The Dearest and the Best - Leslie Thomas
The Freedom of Jenny - Julie Burtinshaw
The Scarlet Letter - N. Hawthorne
Some Sunny Day - Annie Groves
Emma - Jane Austen
Helena - Evelyn Waugh
Edmund Campion - Evelyn Waugh
The Secret Garden - F. H. Burnett
Manalive - G.K. Chesterton
The Innocence of Father Brown - G.K. Chesterton
The Man Who Was Thursday - G.K. Chesterton
The Book of Negroes - Lawrence Hill
The Host - Stephenie Meyer
A Walk to Remember - Nicholas Sparks
Frankenstein - Mary Shelley

A Dangerous World

I just finished reading The Screwtape Letters, and so lately I've been thinking a lot about the struggle of the human will between good and evil. As Screwtape writes in one of his letters, God has created a truly "dangerous world" - a world in which "moral issues really come to the point.”

Screwtape is right, for God did make the world dangerous when he gave us free will. Free will allows us to fully appreciate God's goodness through a choice, but we can also make the choice to go in the opposite direction and walk away from Him. Each of us has been given the ability to make decisions that will affect our souls for eternity - and this can be a terrifying thing to ponder. But isn't it this very danger that makes goodness itself beautiful? For how can we fully appreciate goodness without the existence of evil? How can we see beauty without there being ugliness? How can we recognize light without darkness? There are endless examples of this intriguing truth. Our ability to discern and make choices may be dangerous, but it is this very danger that makes the reality of life all the more beautiful.

Perelandra

You know how when you just finish reading the last page of a really good book, and you put it down, stare into nothing (or everything, whichever you want to call it), and you find yourself so in awe and wonder that you're helpless to do anything because you're just so overcome by emotion? Well, that was me a moment ago. I am currently reading C.S. Lewis' space trilogy, and I just completed the second book, Perelandra. It's been said numerous times before but I'll gladly say it again: C.S. Lewis certainly has a way with words. His ability to create new worlds, people and feelings and make them all so real and complete, is just incredible. Indeed, I wish I had a fraction of the intelligence and imaginative abilities that Lewis had, just so I could accurately describe all of my thoughts right now!

The book made me feel both joyous and very sad. Joyous, mainly because of the ending, which describes the "Great Dance." This Dance is what will come after the end of the worlds - which is actually the Beginning, not at all the end - and how fantastically beautiful it will be. Even with all of the incredible descriptions that Lewis gives of it, he still stresses the fact that it will be more glorious than we could ever imagine.

Yes, the book made me sad, also. This is because of the way Lewis describes the planet Perelandra. This planet is perfect, beautiful, and free from sin... very similar to what the Garden of Eden might have been like before the Fall of Man. Dr. Ransom (the main character), when he finds a small lie coming out of his mouth, immediately discovers the air, atmosphere, or whatever it is, forcing himself to correct the lie he uttered. There are no such things as deceit and lies in this world.

Another interesting thing is how pleasure is depicted in Perelandra. There were certain experiences and foods that gave Ransom far more pleasure than anything he had ever found or tasted on Earth, and yet: he discovered that he had zero desire to over-indulge or have more of the pleasureful substance than he needed.

To clarify, what makes me sad is the thought of the world we missed out on because of the Fall - and all of the beauty, majesty, purity and innocence of it. In the book, the "Green Lady," after it was suggested to her that she might disobey Malildil (God), replied with something like, "Why would I even think of disobeying Malildil? It gives me the greatest pleasure of all just to do his bidding. I would never want to do anything to the contrary of His Will." Imagine a world where no one did anything except that of His Will... it would solve all of our problems!

All in all, it was a fantastic read, and I can't wait to delve into the third book of this trilogy. Perelandra helped me to come to a greater understanding of the Fall of Man and how it may have come about - other than the facts we know from the Book of Genesis and from what the Church teaches.

I definitely recommend anyone who loves CS Lewis, sci-fi or philosophical fiction to read this trilogy! Not to mention any of his other books, as well. Reading the Chronicles of Narnia was one of the best parts of my childhood :)