Monday 16 February 2015

Doing our bit with books

Some weighty reading.


The first book exchange to help raise money for a charity here on Skopelos was held at the weekend. The idea is simple. People bring books and then other people - or even the same people - take away books pausing only to make a donation to charity.

We were keen to take part because reading is big in our house and it's surprising how many books you can get through when there is nothing tiresome to interrupt your day. Also the palliative care charity, Faros, is a good cause. 

It is, as they say, a no-brainer. We avoid the risk of swamping our house with books while at the same time refreshing our stock of books AND we help a charity which does important work here.

It got me thinking that a few years ago I would have started hyperventilating and having nosebleeds just at the thought of getting rid of any books. I am still with Cicero, who is reputed to have said: "A room without books is like a body without a soul", it's just that I no longer feel it is necessary to fill the room to capacity. Some books will suffice, especially if they are good books that have become well-loved friends.

I suppose it's time for me to commune with some of those good friends, but in the meantime here's the splendid Book of Love by The Monotones.


* Picture of book sculpture in Berlin by Lienhard Schulz (Own work) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html), CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/) or CC BY 2.5 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5)], via Wikimedia Commons

2 comments:

  1. Great song at the end, although someone in the audience was lucky not to have an eye out.

    I've held on to books in the past and jettisoned books and it's a surprisingly nice feeling. It's rare, I suppose, that books aren't going to a good home when they leave you.

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    1. I suppose it's true to say that books usually go to a good home when they leave you. Having said that I felt a bit as if I was abandoning my children when I put lots of my books in an Oxfam book bank, but, as you say, they were going to a good home.

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