“There’s is nothing like a book, to wake up the inquisitive mind in a child, for the rest of his life, character may be destiny, but books are beautiful views, and signpost of great help, along the life road, we travel.”
And you can quote me on that one!
About a month ago I read a post of a fellow blogger, complaining about finding files, my problem its finding books, that I own.
And relatively speaking I own about maybe twenty –five boxes full of books, they occupy the better part of the second bedroom I have, stacked up around the walls of the bedroom about waist high, I could save space pilling them higher, but it will be too hard to be able to search for a title when I am looking for it, book boxes are heavy, and no, I will not read a tablet!
Spend too much time on the computer as it is, and many great books specially the old kind you will not find online. Not to add some books are masterpieces of art, and just to behold them, feel, and have in your hand a real pleasure, it’s not just reading them!
Hey, some people collect, all kind of junk!
I do not collect, I read books, but if they are also a pleasure to behold, and with a few extras throw in to them as special editions, onion paper, decorated edges, leather bound, meanwhile you read them, got nothing against it!
My father had a large room of an old house with a big bookcase full of books even on top, and possibly as many boxes of books, and other objects, as I do now myself, on quite a smaller house.
Moving, many times (sorry lost counts of how many times, approximately thirty –three, or thirty-five times over my lifetime.) a reason not to own nice bookshelves, since you never know if it they will fit on your next place you move. Every time, I got to decide what books to left behind, a task, I do not enjoy, and certainly not easy, in fact physically demanding as well, and dangerous to your lower back!
A soon as I leant to read, possibly six years of age, my father an avid reader put a book in my hands to read, early one morning, very likely a Saturday, when I was off school.
An adventure novel by the then popular Emilio Salgari, in Italy, his extensive body of work was more widely read than that of Dante! Today he is still among the 40 most translated Italian authors. Many of his most popular novels have been adapted as comics, animated series and feature films. He is considered the father of Italian adventure fiction and Italian pop culture, and the “grandfather” of the Spaghetti Western, I guess my father read him as a child, and he read them when a child, and he kept them, and it was the first book I read, already told the story in a past blog.
Anyway it was not more than a 110 pages long, and when my father, returned home, I gave him back to him, my father told me:
“You did not like it?
“No, I just finish reading it, and in fact since there’s a sequel to the story, I want the next one!”
Father was delighted, and pleased, unfortunately for me, I devour the whole collection, about one book a day! But since my father had many books, some I am afraid not suitable for young children, I start reading every book he had, and no only that, with my allowance, start saving and buying my own books at the local bookstore, unfortunately at the time my small town did not have a public library, but father, and mother, were generous, and bought me many books, the ones tat I rarely touched were my schoolbooks! Specially math, chemistry, physics and the likes, except for History and Literature.
By the time I was in Junior high there was no book in my father library that I had not read, but he had many boxes full of paperbacks in English, a foreign language to me at the time, so I told him that I wanted to learn English, and my father had learned his English well, and here I will tell you from what book he learned it from.
”Théodore Robertson, whose real name was Pierre-Charles-Théodore Lafforgue, was born in Paris in 1803 and died in the same city in 1871. Robertson was a lexicographer who designed a method of teaching languages that would go down in history as «the Robertson method », in honor of the pseudonym that he was allowed to use instead of his name, by decree, in 1858. Around 1822, when Robertson was only 19 years old, he was already teaching English courses, which allowed him to develop his method at an early age from the jacotot teaching system, by the Frenchman Jean Joseph Jacotot (1770-1840). Robertson’s method, focused on learning foreign languages by combining theory and practice, with a great emphasis on the latter, spread throughout Europe and America, as we have editions and adaptations published in Germany, Spain and the United States, and we also find evidence that his books were very popular in Russia.
Kone, Krusos, Kronos 
All these old books are works of art, both visually and of literature merit. Great post.
Yes, reading always being important for me, as well as a pleasure, and delight on handling special beautiful crafted editions.
Thank you for your comment, we appreciate it.
Those are some cool looking books to be sure. The world would be so much duller without books.
Yes, they are special, and a pleasure, and the world not only be duller, without them, but also very ignorant, as well.
Thank you for your comment. 🙂
So true!
Hi. Books can be precious to us. That’s why we keep many of the books that we obtained when we were young. Those books remind us of our youth. They are parts of our lives.
Yes, I do have a few of them myself, not every one, since my moving so many times, plus the amount of books I had at many periods of my life, but one knows which of them to keep, and which ones one can let go.
Thank you for your comment Neil, its appreciated.
I also started reading at a young age and, like you, prefer reading the printed book. Since I have very limited storage space, I have to be very selective about the books I want to keep.
Yes, the eternal dilemma of my peripatetic life, and my over thirty five moves, from two countries, five states, and seven cities..!
Which books to take, and which ones to leave behind? 🤷♂️
That’s a lot of moving.
Agree, and furthermore I am not sure this will be my last move, will see…🤷♂️
I completely understand your passion for books, Brogido, and I just love your many variously decorated ones! Thank you so much for having them shown and spoken about them:)
Yes those books are my most precious material possessions. Just reading them and hold them in your hands, bring aesthetic pleasure. Through my life I got more books that I can remember, every few years when I move I got to make the hard decision, of which books to take with me, and those ones to get rid. Never an easy task, but so it’s life. 🤷♂️ 😉
Sorry for my lateness, in answering, too busy with other business.
Take care Martina! 🙂
Don’t worry, Brogido, better late than never:):) Maybe you should stop moving around so your problem would be solved? Anyway, all the best and stay well.
Martina
Well, the reason that I move it’s not because I want, but because I have to!
In other words, I move because I have no other choice, when my landlord decides to either rise the rent, or ask me to move, because she want to demolish the property, to build a larger house, as it was the case on my last move, I should bought a house years ago, but never did it, because I could not afford to buy one in the USA!
Now I am retired and back on my country, with possibly not too many years left to live, I see no point to buy one, now. 🤷♂️
Yes, I understand, but I am afraid that there are “inconviniences” with whatever we do! We have a house and a big garden, but my husband is very ill, so there is a lot of work for me to do. Let’s try to do the best we can:)
Sorry to hear about your husband condition, Martina, best wishes for you. 🙂
:):)
All true! I was lucky to have a father as a writer; therefore, my childhood had been surrounded by bookshelves. Excellent read, thanks.🙏
Good for you, my father also influenced me a lot!
Thank you for your comment, we appreciate it. 🙂
I am glad you did, it certainly helps to be born in a family where someone likes to read books.😊
Reblogged this on The Writing Life and commented:
“Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend. Inside of a dog it’s too dark to read.”
https://craigsquotes.wordpress.com/2021/05/10/outside-of-a-dog-a-book-is-mans-best-friend-inside-of-a-dog-its-too-dark-to-read-2
Thank you for the reblog Craig!
Oh wonderful post! Although I read as a child, it wasn’t until my early teens that a book captured my heart. It was Herman Hess’s Sidhartha, which at that time seemed very exotic and exciting to me.
Your dad must’ve been a wonderful man to have nurtured a love of reading and languages in you. And perhaps beyond that, how many of us readers also discover a love of writing too?
Thanks, as always, for sharing so much of yourself with us here. 🙂
Well, I suppose I was very lucky, or destiny wanted it that way, my father was a serious reader, and me taking after him. Figure I read every book he had, then I started to buy my own since around ten, or twelve years of age.
I did not read Hess, until maybe 1972 when I was nineteen years of age, and read also a few of his books Demian, Steppenwolf, Siddhartha, and The Glass Bead Game, on later years I bought his full works, unfortunately by that time a grown up, and having read his most remarkable books, I found the rest of his work, not much to my liking, he seemed obsessed, and frustrated for the events o his youth when Hesse began a journey through various institutions and schools and experienced intense conflicts with his parents who basically locked him up believing he was crazy, anyway, except for his more read books, the rest are boring, and repetitious, telling it’s youthful rebellion’s, and frustrations, kind like he never grew up, and got stuck on his unhappy youth.
On my blog I wrote a post about one of his books:
Later I commented somewhere, that for reading Hess you have to be young, in the age of idealism, if mature, or old you may find him childish, and naïve.🤷♂️
Thank you Debra! 🙂
Yes! Yes! Yes!!I see to it that my sons and now grandkids have a start reading books. I grew up on a farm. When my mother would catch me reading a book she would tell me to go outside and not waste time reading. I found that if I took a book to the barn I could read in peace.
You know Don my father used to tell me a similar story, his father died when he was two years old, my Grandmother thought boys did not need an education, she took him off school on the third grade, my father used to tell me he wanted to be an Engineer, he ended being a successful Traveler Salesman, but he was an avid reader.
Books are most definitely works of art! Regarding your many boxes of books and lack of shelf space, you could take a page (haha) from Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and make book stacks serve as tables and put lamps or other items on them. I did that for years and it was a wonderful way to showcase my books. Getting one from the stack did occasionally present challenges. 😉
Thank you dear for such wonderful advise, but when it come to decorations, I go to confess, I was educated the wrong way by the women of my family, they will not even allow me to go into the kitchen, or grab a broom, not even do my bed, or wash my clothes,
I will not even needed to take it out of the drawers, the women of the house will have everything ready for me, at a table near my bed, every day. I was serve at the table and the women of the family will cook and serve the males with the upmost zeal, my Nanny will be busy in the kitchen but with an eye on me at the table, and if she even look I was looking around the table for something she will say, what do you need?
If I will say a tortilla, she would reply, and how do you want the tortilla, freshly made, reheated, doradita, with lard, butter, cheese, or toasted?
They will not allow me to open the fridge and pick up a fruit, or cold water!🤷♂️
Needless to say when I left the house at nineteen and being on my own I was totally useless!“🤦♂️
Lest just say I learnt the hard way! 😒
So I will say just, that keeping a house neat, and in order never has being a quality of mine, I cook and people tell me I am a great cook when they try my food, I do clean, maybe not as often as I should, I wash my clothes on a lavadero, since at the moment I do not have a washing machine, and hang it to dry on a line, and if someone may be coming to visit me well, I do my best to put some order at least in the area where will hang around, and shot the doors of the messy places!🤣
I have being married three times and now I am an old bachelor, and miss much a woman to oversee me, and take care of me!
And not ashamed to say it, or for here, everybody to read it.
It’s just the plain truth!🤷♂️🤣
I have as a compensation some wonderful qualities, that make me unique, and appreciated by many who know me.😉
It sounds very much like the way men were traditionally raised in my own New Mexico Hispanic culture. And I feel certain you have many many qualities that people would appreciate. 😘
Yes I was raised to live on an old past age, not on the current standards of today, unfortunately, where both sexes are equally oblige to do homework, my father at home never raised a finger around the house, that was the job of my mother, and the women of the house, like aunties, and nannies, who had pride to keep everything neat, and ready for everybody at home, specially the males, those days are gone today! Something to add was mother worked hard around the house, and so the other women relatives, but they never had to go out and find a job! It was the reason they took pride in their work at home, and let the man the business, and worries of bringing the money to our home. 🤷♂️😞
Valuable assets indeed! As is the “magic” of browsing through and old book store. The old books, the smell, the old creaky wood floors….
A chance meeting with a kindred spirit while browsing the shelves. Unfortunately in this digital age, book stores, like books, are getting harder to find. Another nice blog… kudos 👏!
Yes! There is more to a book than just his content!🤣
I love your book story and your love of books, which I also have. I’ve collected favorites in hard copy and they reside in “Colossus,” our gigantic Ikea bookcase. Sadly, I HAVE resorted to a Kindle to read other books. I feel like I’ve betrayed the library and all physical books in the world, lol !! But you know what–it’s SO convenient for night reading since it has its own light. Book lights just didn’t do the job–always fussing and fidgeting with them, they wouldn’t illuminate correctly, and since we’re in bed when I’m doing night reading, I’d invariably wake up hubby. WIth the Kindle, no muss, no fuss, hahaha. I feel so bad! But I’ll never stop reading, either way.
I got nothing against kindle, one tablet thousands of books, and a lot of convenience, as what you mention, I am just old, and therefore old fashioned, I got a few books in marvelous editions, and they bring me pleasure and satisfaction, beyond the reading to my senses, not just to my imagination.
But of course to read, and learn, its the most important thing, not how a book it’s made, to look, and feel.😊
What beautiful books…I love this post and agree with you on the kindle but needs must but I only add books that I wouldn’t buy a hard copy of if that makes sense and they’re ideal for night reading…A treasured book deserves a shelf…Thank you for following CarolCooks2
Thank you for your comment, the important thing it’s to read, kindle, or a book to each, whatever it’s most convenient. 😊
Absolutely!
I’ll have to check out Emilio Salgari, there is nothing quite as fun as Spaghetti Westerns. It is a journey of wonder you take us on with this post, how books opened your mind as a child and put you on the pathway to adventure in life. Great photos throughout this post which gives the reader the feeling both the physical and inner beauty of a book is true art. I feel a little bad because I have been seduced by the Kindle 🙂 Cheers and enjoy your weekend.
Well, his books are wonderful for children and young teenagers, I am afraid as an adult you may not see him on the same light, his books where the equivalent of the dime Western novels, which spanned the era of the 1860s–1900s. Most would hardly be recognizable as a modern western, having more in common with James Fennimore Cooper’s Leatherstocking saga, but many of the standard elements originated here: a cool detached hero, a frontiersman (later a cowboy), a fragile heroine in danger of the despicable outlaw, savage Indians, violence and gunplay, and the final outcome where Truth and Light wins over all.
I will not classified them as great literature, but a great introduction for a child who dreams of adventures, and more important, a hook for the child into reading further on, and develop a healthy reading habit.
It seems the Kindle is saving trees, so that’s good, I am just afraid I am too old to change to kindle, as it is I spend too much time in the computer, and I do not read as much as I used to, since I decided to buy one, twenty years ago, or so. 🤷♂️
Growing up I was a big Louis L’Amour fan, and the recipe you describe of Emilio Salgari is the same L’Amour used. Big hooks for young minds. For me, the Kindle proved to be so valuable when I travel, so I’ve now become very use to it but initially was not a fan.
Well, by all means try it, as a young man I was enthralled by Salgari’s: Sandokan the Tiger of Malaysia. Here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandokan
I could possibly throw or give away everything else I own, but not my books. 📚
Good for you Brian, I love books unfortunately my peripatetic life, full of moves, living in two countries, seven states, eight cities, not counting three times alone in the place I am now, and the many houses, and apartments, on each city, I try to figure out how many times I have changed address even if moving within the same city, and every time come with a different amount, somewhere between 34, or 36 times, and due to circumstances not of my choice, I have to get rid of books, the last one and most painful, was moving out of Los Angeles, where I have to leave behind half a storage of books, unfortunately. 🤷♂️😞
Half a storage of books must be hard-breaking. I thought you were in LA. Where are you now?
Well, it was heartbreaking, I was, in LA, but after retirement, and on a pension, needed to live on a less expensive place, but I did not have the space at the new place to bring so many books with me, period.
I am at a less expensive town, about 220 miles from LA.
Can’t imagine a world without books 📚. Happy reading!
I know, now day we take it for granted, just a couple of centuries ago, even if the written word was known for many centuries, most people did not knew how to read.
Thank you for your comment. ❤️
A post that speaks of the love of books… well… maybe not… school books…!
🇯🇲🏖️
You hit the nail on the head!
As a child, that was my view of schoolbooks!
Thank you for your comment.
Have you read Alan Watt? https://alanwattarchive.com/transcript-1776/
Not until you sent me the link, but guess what?
I wrote a post about it a year ago, here: