Unpacking My Library

I am unpacking my library. Yes, I am. The books are not yet on the shelves, not yet touched by the mild boredom of order. I cannot march up and down their ranks to pass them in review before a friendly audience. You need not fear any of that. Instead, I must ask you to join me in the disorder of crates that have been wrenched open, the air saturated with the dust of wood, the floor covered with torn paper, to join me among piles of volumes that are seeing daylight again after two years of darkness, so that you may be ready to share with me a bit of the mood — it is certainly not an elegiac mood but, rather, one of anticipation — which these books arouse in a genuine collector. For such a man is speaking to you, and on closer scrutiny he proves to be speaking only about himself. — Walter Benjamin, 1931

It is true. I may be pointing at these books, but I am speaking to you about myself. I am such a person: an historian, an enquirer, a complicator, a reader, a writer.

Did these books make me that? No, they did not. But, they were often near to hand. They are not my history. My name is not inscribed inside their covers, nor any name related to mine. But, they have been with my family. My great-great grandfather and his family moved into the house that held these books in 1920. This is our hundredth anniversary, though the books lived many lives before me.

A remainder: a property interest that gives an entitlement to possession only when prior interests end.

To remainder: to dispose (of a book) at a reduced price. Also with author as object.

What is left of a reader when only his books remain? What of the scraps of paper, the bookmarks, dog-ears, dust? Reminders all.

This doesn’t claim to be a work of micro-history, but a chronicle of questions about history and its periphery, about collections and collecting, about time and memory. My collection does not contain valuable volumes, nor notable readers. But, time is indiscriminate. It happens to all people, everywhere. It happens to all things, first editions and ephemera alike.

Among the books in my collection, there are annotated envelopes and advertisements, bookmarks and tax records. This is a junk drawer history. Time stopped for one person, then another, and another still. These scraps of paper lived on. They lived their way into history, my history, their likeness is revealed through long-exposure.

What’s worth keeping? Whose history is History?

I am unpacking my library. Yes, I am. One essay per book until the boxes are empty.