There are crooked towers and teetering spires as far as the eye can see.
I’m at home surrounded by books and asking myself a simple question: At what point does a To Be Read pile become a To Be Redistributed pile?
Some of you well-adjusted folks keep your shelves orderly and organized. But I suspect many readers keep building their preciousssss stacks long after they realize there will not be time to read them all.
And it’s sort of a problem, especially when your spouse figures out that your gift of a “new love seat” is just paperbacks stacked under a blanket.
No reader likes getting rid of books. It’s something you only consider when you’ve run out of space for all the new books you just bought or because you promised in couples counseling you’d locate the floor again.
Look, it’s not just me. Last week, actor Paul Giamatti told the New York Times that he’d gotten someone to deplete his shelves for him. “I do have a big collection of books at home, and I actually had to get help from somebody a few years ago to organize it. I got rid of hundreds if not thousands of books about three or four years ago,” he said.
Terrifying, right? But there was a happy ending to his tale.
“And in the space of time since, I’ve almost reacquired everything I got rid of,” said “The Holdovers” star, a used bookstore fan who was photographed lounging on the couch at The Iliad in North Hollywood.
High pile of vintage books with a big black cat on the top. (Getty Images)
OK, back to what to do with all these books. Some you are never getting rid of, boxing and unboxing them every time you move. They are family.
But there are a few you might be able to part with. The popular science book you bought thinking it might make you popular or scientific. The Y2K manuals. The urgent predictive tomes debunked by much worse realities.
Even I will admit there might be some books you don’t need anymore:
The one you picked up from a Little Free Library that smelled like old cheese.
That multi-book series you were going to spend madcap afternoons reading before you realized by page 3 that you will never read this. Too bad you’d already bought the entire set.
Those impulse buys where you feel your interest waning before you even leave the store.
But like it or not, most are staying. They need to be here to welcome in the new ones. (And no joke, two books I’d ordered online arrived as I was writing this.)
Because our stacks, our stately pleasure-tomes, represent not just a need for more IKEA shelves but also optimism: One day, you will read all these books.
Or you will, at least for a time, maybe get them off the floor.
A brand-new book event
Seen here on Dec. 20, 2023, a customer browses inside Octavia’s Bookshelf. (Photo by Erik Pedersen)
Do you need a lift this weekend? A new book festival involving two local bookstores aims to raise your reading up.
The two-day LIFTed Book Festival is celebrating Black History Month with the theme “Building Bridges, Stronger Together.” The event is being launched by LIFTed UNITED, which describes its mission as “a literary community organization founded this year to promote greater support for librarians, teachers, writers, readers and authors in Southern California and beyond.”
The event will be in-person on Saturday Feb. 24 and go virtual on Sunday, Feb. 25.
On Saturday, Day 1 of the festival will kick off at Octavia’s Bookshelf from 12-3 p.m. and feature in-store author panels, books signings and Q&As.
On Sunday, the virtual Day 2 event will run 11 a.m.-3 p.m. with book sales supported by Reparations Club.
Authors taking part in the event include Diane Marie Brown, Rachel Howzell Hall, Liselle Sambury, Kai Harris, C.M. Lockhart, LaDarrion Williams, Myah Hollis, Shelly Page, Antoine Bandele, Karis McPherson, Rimma Onoseta, Sherri Smith and more.
The event is free and open to the public. For more information, go to the LIFTed UNITED website where you can RSVP for Day 1 and Day 2.
Maria Hummel shares the novel she kept in a drawer at work
Maria Hummel is the author of “Goldenseal.” (Photo by Karen Pike / Courtesy of Counterpoint)
Maria Hummel’s latest novel is “Goldenseal,” which involves two female friends, Lacey and Edith, who meet up at a Los Angeles luxury hotel in 1990. Her two previous novels, “Still Lives” and “Lesson In Red,” are set in the L.A. art and museum worlds.
Q. What are you reading now?
“Old Babes in the Wood” by Margaret Atwood
Q. How do you decide what to read next?
Our house can be cold in winter and it is full of books. Sometimes the next one is the nearest one!
Q. What’s something – a fact, a bit of dialogue or something else – that has stayed with you from a recent reading?
There’s an American doctor in Alice McDermott’s “Absolution.” He’s absolutely hollowed and hardened by war, like a fruit that rots except for the brittle rind. I finished the book a couple weeks ago, but I can still feel him staring out at me.
Q. Do you have any favorite book covers?
The cover of Jenni L. Walsh’s new novel, “Unsinkable,” is gorgeous. The design has so many layers.
Q. Do you listen to audiobooks? If so, are there any titles or narrators you’d recommend?
Donna Tartt reading “True Grit” by Charles Portis. Also Kareem Abdul-Jabbar reading “Becoming Kareem.”
Q. Do you have a favorite book or books?
Currently, I am addicted to Elizabeth Strout, and she just announced she has a new one coming out with Olive and Lucy – very exciting!
Q. What’s a memorable book experience – good or bad – you’re willing to share?
The summer I worked at an A&P, I kept a Robertson Davies novel in the coupon drawer. I was 16, in cheap mary janes and thrift store jeans. Every time I opened the drawer, the cover flashed at me: You will get out of here one day. Some people don’t realize that for small-town kids, books can feel like the only escape. This is still true now. That’s why book banning is so especially awful.
Q. What’s something about your book that no one knows?
Does that no one include me? I don’t know what happens next for Lacey and Edith, though I have a hope and a guess.
More books, authors and bestsellers
The Bee Gees from left, Maurice, Robin and Barry sing close into the microphone at a Miami Beach concert, Nov. 6, 1979. The brothers are the subject of a 2024 biography by Bob Stanley entitled, “The Story of the Bee Gees: Children of the World.” (AP Photo/Phil Sandlin)
Brothering heights
Why the Bee Gees were like the Brontë sisters and more from Bob Stanley’s new book. READ MORE
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Kazu Kibuishi is the creator of the 9-part “Amulet” series, which wrapped up with the 2024 publication of “Waverider.” (Photo credit Studio B Portraits / Courtesy of Graphix/Scholastic)
An epic struggle
Kazu Kibuishi nearly died while making “Amulet.” Now, he’s completed it. READ MORE
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Eilish Quin is the author of the debut novel, “Medea.” (Photo credit Christopher Brown / Courtesy of Atria Books)
A classic move
Why this Los Angeles-based author reached back to ancient Greece for “Medea.” READ MORE
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“The Book of Love” by Kelly Link is among the top-selling nonfiction releases at Southern California’s independent bookstores. (Courtesy of Random House)
The week’s bestsellers
The top-selling books at your local independent bookstores. READ MORE
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Read any books that you want to tell people about? Email epedersen@scng.com with “ERIK’S BOOK PAGES” in the subject line and I may include your comments in an upcoming newsletter.
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Thanks, as always, for reading.
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