On Old Books
Yes, I am one of those people with too many books. I used to keep them all then one summer I realised that they were piled up not only against the walls, but in piles on the floor, and I spent 3 days ruthlessly culling novels, proofs, and those weird coffee table books you buy for a £1 in a charity sale and never even open. I can’t bring myself to part with museum catalogues or history of art books, and weirdly, I can’t bring myself to part with any of the dog-eared textbooks left over from university. Most of them a Old English and Middle English things that were second hand when I bought them, rarely taken down from the shelf, scarcely opened in 25 years but familiar. Having them around is like having company.
Then, yesterday, I had to write something about Britain at the time of the Norse invasion, and I’d been slogging through it (books still untouched); rehashing an earlier version, driving myself mad over an irrelevance to do with the Franks and Charlemagne and suddenly I found I was just … writing. The books remained untouched, but all the information from all those years ago was still there. I didn’t even have to look at it to know, and part of me is sure that it because of those books still sitting on the shelf.
Today’s writing music: Efterklang, which is the Danish compound word for the ringing in your ears when the music stops. I like their stuff a lot.
Today’s subject: Early gynaecological texts written in or translated into English, indicating they were written for a lay-audience.