Beautiful Books

Most people, when walking into my apartment, would say that I collect books. But is that true? To me, a "collection" implies items that are purchased to be displayed, but not to be used. Porcelain figurines would be a collection. Stamps are a collection. Action figures in their original packaging are a collection.

Books can be a collection too, if they're put up on a shelf and never touched. When they're opened and read and enjoyed, they become a library. For the most part, my books form a library. I buy the books I want to read, and then I read them. Whether or not they're ever opened again, I have read them, and that can never be taken away.

There are exceptions, however. Every so often, I visit a used bookstore, like the Strand, and I see a Beautiful Book. They are classics, of course. They are always hardcover, and often bound in leather. Invariably they have gold leaf, and not just to form the lettering. They are decorated, designed to be beautiful as well as functional. I open the cover, and discover that they are on sale for the price of a paperback. They come home with me.

Problem is, they become part of my collection, not my library. It's not that I bought them without the intention of ever reading them. At some point in the indeterminate future, I tell myself, I will read them. But the problem with the indeterminate future is that it remains the future no matter how much time advances. And so these Beautiful Books sit upon my shelves, making collections of dust of their own.

So in 2011, I have made a resolution to add these books to my library. I have selected twelve in particular, and over the next twelve months, I will plumb their secrets and make them my own. They are:

• The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, by Henry Fielding
• The Robe, by Lloyd C. Douglas
• The Old Curiosity Shop, by Charles Dickens
• The Merchant of Venice, by William Shakespeare
• King Solomon's Mines, by H. Rider Haggard
• The Secret Garden, by Frances Hodgson Burnett
• Stories from Rudyard Kipling, by Rudyard Kipling
• Doctor Zhivago, by Boris Pasternak
• The Mysterious Island, by Jules Verne
• Uncle Tom's Cabin, by Harriet Beecher Stowe
• Mutiny on the Bounty, by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall
• The Red Badge of Courage and Other Selected Stories, by Stephen Crane

Each month, I will select one of these books and read it. As of yet, the order is undetermined, but I plan to start small and work my way up. Tom Jones is the largest by far, and I plan to tackle that at some point over the summer, perhaps in July or August. I will also save one of the shorter volumes for next December, since time is always short around Christmas.

If the experiment goes well, I may continue it. These are not the only books I have collected but never read. I'm not sure how long it would take to go through all of them, but it seems to be a worthy experiment nonetheless.