Books, books, books!

As some of you know, I'm into purging. It's (sort-of) part of my job, but I've tried to bring that same sense of culling to my own life. When I moved a year ago, I undertook a major downscaling of my possessions. Despite my best efforts, however, I still wasn't happy with the number of boxes I was carting to my new apartment - to the extent that I vow I will downsize even more the next time I change abodes. (In an ideal world, I'd be able to cart all my possessions in about six or seven boxes. That's of course fairly unrealistic, but a worthy goal nonetheless.)

One of the biggest areas of purging was my book collection. I'm a reader - I have an unabashed and passionate relationship with the written word. But I realized a couple of years ago that that doesn't necessarily translate into being a collector. Because of my work, book collectors are a species I'm all-too familiar with. And while I admire many of them, the simple truth is that I ain't one of them. I don't have the financial resources, the inclination or quite simply the space to be a serious collector. A few years ago, I was looking at my bookshelf and thought to myself, "Why the hell do I still have that copy of John Irving's A Prayer for Owen Meany when I have no intention of ever reading it again?" I seem to remember enjoying it, for sure, but not enough to re-read it. Yet my bookshelves were rife with similar books. They were relics of my reading history, trophies. But they didn't serve much purpose except to take up space.

Since then, I've been ruthless about getting rid of books. I still read, of course, probably more than I ever have. But I use the library for most of my books. And when I do buy books (usually secondhand), I tend to pass them on to friends when I finish. This is not to say I don't keep any books. There are some authors that are special to me (Roth, Murakami, Kundera, Lawrence) and that I suspect I will re-read at some point. And I've kept pretty much all the books that have been given to me over the years as gifts. Most important, I still maintain a shelf of books I've bought that I'm eventually going to read, the so-called reading queue.

For many years now, I've indulged in an orgy of book buying delight at the various University of Toronto fall book sales, most prominently the one at University College and Trinity. I've gotten much smarter, however, which each passing year (and some years I haven't gone at all) - namely, not buying books that I feel I should read (Moll Flanders tends to be the example I like to use) but books that I'm almost certain I will (eventually) read. It's resulted in a lot less books being bought by yours truly (with the added benefit of having less strain on my shoulder from lugging my purchases home).

I'm going to be away for both the UC and Trinity sales this year, so I made a special effort to make the book sale at Victoria College. In fact, I went twice: on Saturday, and yesterday (Monday) when books were going for half price. I did well this year, and bought a lot more books than I had intended. So in no apparent order - well I guess the order I stacked them next to me to note them - these books are being added to my reading queue shelf:

The Sportswriter by Richard Ford. He's an author I've never read but who's been on my radar for years, largely because writers I like respect his work.

The Middle Stories by Sheila Heti. It's a series of small and seemingly quirky stories; she herself, from what I understand - I don't know her personally, but we're probably not too far removed sixth-degree of separation wise - she's personally quirky. I don't think I need to read this from cover to cover, so I'll probably put it on my bedside table and pick up from time to time.

Zinger & Me by Jack MacLeod. A colleague of mine loves this book, and it's about the academic world and journalism, so figured I'd give it a shot; and it only cost me $1.

The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing. The favourite author of another colleague of mine. She lent me books of another series Lessing wrote (the name escapes me) but I just couldn't get into it. So I figured I'd try the Nobel Laureate's most renowned work.

Ceremony by Robert Parker. Bought for next year's camping trip; the book is small, portable and most likely fun to read.

Paris Notebooks by Mavis Gallant. I've been doing a lot of proseltizing of Gallant lately, telling people that they should be reading her wonderful short stories. This is her great work of non-fiction. It would be ideal for taking on a trip to Paris - maybe I should plan one of those...

Picked-Up Pieces by John Updike. As much as I love Updike's Rabbit series of books and his short stories, his essay writing (particularly about sports) and book reviews are fantastic. This collection gathers his mid-1960s to early 1970s non-fiction.

Anil's Ghost by Michael Ondaatje. Can one really go wrong spending a mere $2 on Ondaatje?

Night Field by Don McKay. Perhaps Canada's greatest living poet, this was a steal at $1.50. I met McKay a couple of years ago, just as he was planning his big move from BC to St. John's, Nfld. Talk about moving cross country!

Dangling Man, The Victim, Seize the Day by Saul Bellow. This is a Vantage Press hardcover that collects Bellow's earliest novels. I've read the novella Seize the Day, but not the other two works. One of the real attractions, however, is the groovy retro book jacket. It's going to look great on my book shelf!

A Love Supreme by Kent Nussey. An impulse buy since I've never heard of the book or the author. But he lives in Toronto, and the story is set in and around Little Italy. Also, the story seems to revolve around jazz, one of my loves, so it's worth taking a flyer on. (It was only $1, so hardly much of an investment.)

Hugging the Shore by John Updike. More essays and reviews, this time covering the mid-1970s to early 1980s.

I should add one more book to the list, bought outside the confines of the Vic College Book Sale: The Skating Rink - Robert Bolano. This is going to be the first book I read on my vacation (leaving next Friday!) to Buenos Aires. I know, Bolano is a Chilean and lived in Mexico City, but it's still sort-of South American. Yes? No? I don't care.

The quandry

So this is where I'm at tonight: procrastinating on a freelance assignment that was due today (I've already extended the deadline until tomorrow, and fear it'll extend through the weekend due to terrible apathy), and pondering some microwave popcorn. But, is it right to eat popcorn without also watching a film? (Popcorn doesn't seem appropriate snack food to accompany the evening news, for example.) And while I have two DVDs on my kitchen table, they're both French movies - and am I in the mood to read subtitles as 10:00 approaches?

Yes, this is my life. Keep your arms inside the ride at all times.

Autumn meanderings

Ah, there's a chill coming through my office window. Autumn is approaching, which is wonderful news. I was out of town last week - Sandbanks Provincial Park, to be specific, where the sunsets are out of this world (see photo) - with my lovely companion, who loves the sun as if its ... well, her son. Me, I tolerate the sun and heat, but I don't necessarily seek it out. It's ok when it finds me, but only on a temporary basis. Give me cooler, long-sleeve temperatures any day.

But the few days out of the city, away from the smog and the general stresses of work and life, were a wonderful tonic. I had hoped to get quite a bit of reading done, but only partially succeeded. I mostly read in snippets: a few Mavis Gallant stories, a wonderful Orhan Pamuk story in the New Yorker, as well as a few other magazine articles. I also needed something for the beach, so I brought up an Elmore Leonard novel, 52 Pick-Up. I can see why Leonard is a darling of other writers: his prose is snappy, his narrative sense keen, and his characters (usually) original. The novel ends rather abruptly - as well as mildly predictable - but it was still a fun read.

Now I'm on to Peggy Atwood's Oryx and Crake, in anticipation of her new novel Year of the Flood, where I'm high-up on the holds list at the Toronto Public Library. I'm 50 pages in, and struggling a mite. I'm not a big fan of science fiction, although Atwood calls her work "speculative fiction." But a close friend of mine swears that the book is wonderful, and that one needs to read it whole to fully "get" what she's doing, so I will persevere. Although I reminded said friend today over gchat that we don't seem to have a similar literary sensibility.

Oh, and good news for those interested: I found a secondhand copy of Bellow's Adventures of Augie March that I'd been seeking. I bought a companion for it at the same time: Philip Roth's Zuckerman Unbound. Yes, I have too much to read. And yet I still haven't decided what I should bring with me to Argentina. Borges seems a little too heavy for a trip. I'm of course open to suggestion.

The Periphery

Let's face facts. Or, in this case, the fact: I'm a periphery guy. I've never been in the middle of things, in the "thick of it." That's certainly true of my involvement in the CanLit world.

This evening I was hanging out on the wonderful bp nichol laneway, attending Coach House Press' Wayzgoose Party. It was a fun affair: I went with three wonderful friends, spoke for a bit with one of my closest friends, had a couple of beers and a sausage, and then ran into my poet/soon-to-be novelist friend on the way to the subway (she was on her way to the Coach House), who I reminisced with about the same CH party two years when we stayed until midnight. (I should admit to being too shy to say hi to a couple of people I sort-of know, but don't really know. Damn this innate shyness.) The highlight of the evening was the great Michael Ondaatje introducing himself to my friend D., when Alana Wilcox, managing editor at Coach House, told people to introduce themselves to the person next to them and say what their connection was to Coach House. I think D. loved his brush with CanLit royalty, although he admitted he wished he could have something something profound.

While my connection to Coach House is a lot more solid than D.'s - I was actually given a printed invite by legendary Coach House founder Stan Bevington, and I've also been asked to write a small story about Stan being awarded the Order of Canada - I still feel like something of an outsider. Much of it has to do my personality: I'm not terribly outgoing (one day I'll write about my childhood when I was a total chatterbox, and the event that turned me inward), and thus have trouble working a room. And when I get in a crowd of more than two people, I become too self-concious of what I'm saying, and end up not saying much of all. I also wonder about my level of "cool" - or in this case, my lack thereof.

Yet sometimes I ponder my CanLit role, and think: sure, I'm on the periphery, but it's an important role nonetheless. And maybe it's not so bad to walk anonymously, unassumedly (is that a word?), around that crowd. Be content.