Books, books, books

After we finished watching the first season of Rome, that big blowsy soap opera, I hunted up my copy of Suetonius' The Twelve Caesars, which is sort of on the history-lite side, to check on how accurate my impressions of the accuracy of the series were. Suetonius is fun and easy to read, and I have a special fondness for him, having read him in 1983 on the beach in Fort Lauderdale. (I was wearing a plain one-piece bathing suit, while drunken coeds in bikinis and frat boys in shorts with the hems of their underpants hanging out below pranced around me in the sand, and I felt very superior.)

Suetonius focuses quite a lot on the personality and reputation of his subjects, and as I read, it became clear that the characters in the series were largely based on Suetonius' descriptions of Julius and Augustus Caesar. This made me wonder about other sources, both primary and secondary, and one thing led to another and eventually I went looking for my college copy of Cary's classic History of Rome. I looked high (literally; our bookshelves go up to the ceiling) and low (also literally, as they go down to the floor) as well as in between. It wasn't until later that I remembered that my brother Karl is teaching a high school class on ancient history this year and I had "helped" him, first by talking his ear off about my favorite ancient things, and then by dropping off several grocery bags full of carefully selected books at his house when no one was home.

This led me to another mystery. The books at Karl's house are core members of my library. How, then, is it possible that there are no spaces in the bookshelves where those volumes belong? And, moreover, that there is not a single inch of shelf space remaining, and in fact books are stacked up in vertical piles in front of the books on the shelves, and also on the floor? All this is made yet more curious by the fact that since I took those books over to Karl's, many of my usual sources have been dry: Afterwords on Main Street is (tragically) gone, the bookshop of the Friends of the Ann Arbor District Library was closed for months under a cloud, and I missed AAUW's Book Sale Bag Day this year. Where could all these books have come from?

I don't know where they came from, but I know where they can go, at least the ones that might be of use: to the Camel Book Drive. This wonderful project brings books—on camelback—to the remote areas of northeastern Kenya.  They are looking for appropriate books in English or Somali. As it happens, I don't have a single boook in Somali, but I'm going to put together a box of English books and send it off, so take a look at their website and if you have anything they can use, bring it over to my house and I'll send it for you. Alternatively, they have an Amazon Wish List.

 

Comments

[Vicki in Michigan]

My brother said to me once "You can't have too many books!"

Um.

Yes, really, I can. When all the available space for bookshelves is occupied by same, and all shelves are full, and piles of books are still everywhere, well............

Been there, done that.

The thing that helped me seriously purge was Amazon. I looked up the value of several dozen books, and discovered most were in the $10-and-under range, with most under $5.

Knowing that I can easily replace them, should I want to, made it much easier to pass them along.

[Steve Fife-Adams]

Interesting that you bring up Suetonius. In my Historiography class we recently finished reading/discussing the short biography of Charlemagne by Einhard, and we were talking about how Einhard used Suetonius as his model, to the point where some of the language is identical (and therefore renders Einhard's account rather suspect in some of the details). I was thinking about picking up Suetonius after the term is over. Now I guess I have no choice.

[Steve Fife-Adams]

Oh yeah, about the books: I wouldn't concern yourself too much about where they come from. They are there in your house; they want to be read. Welcome them. Build more bookshelves for them so they can get comfy. This is the only reasonable thing to do.