leyton.org

In the ongoing saga of the loft-as-office project, I’m pleased to report that this weekend my books finally made their way up. They’re sat directly across from me, and for the first time in many a year, they’re actually on bookshelves. A wonderful invention I suggest all book lovers contemplate. Books just don’t really look so good piled up or in boxes.

Anyway, whilst Frances isn’t a fan of books as something that should be displayed, she took (I suspect) great delight in arranging my books into rough sections. My arrangements were less precise. “O’Reilly one’s there. Cool. I’ve filled a whole shelf with them!”, and “Database ones there”, and “Science ones there”.

Unfortunately (or fortunately, I’ve not yet worked out which), I don’t really have enough space for all of my books, so it’s time to get rid of a few. I’ve decided that I’m going to get rid of books I either dislike, am never going to read again, or have grown out of. If I had a huge amount of space I’d probably keep them, but I dislike Tom Clancy and with Patricia Cornwell with a passion these days, I’m almost embarrassed to have them on my bookshelf, even though they were enjoyable chewing-gum reads at the time. So I’ve managed to get four or five ‘book boxes’ filled with various books that I’ll be either selling on ebay (if I can make up a set of books to warrant someone’s interest), or giving to a local non-religious charity shop. It’s actually shocking how much even well-kept books depreciate when it comes to second hand value, unless there’s a demand (hard-to-find reference books in particular).

I’m still proud of my books, and I don’t think I can ever have enough of them to be honest. Whilst they are a storage nightmare, I still love just browsing the books and reminding myself of about them and what I enjoyed most out of reading them. I’ve also rediscovered a few books that were gifted, including my prized reference book Fowler’s Modern English Usage, given to me by my Grandfather, Paul Leyton. Prized because I find it extremely helpful in improving my written, and spoken, English, but also because it was such a wonderfully considered gift.

I discovered a poem attached with bluetac to the inside front cover that my grandfather wrote back in 1974, and was particularly proud of, to the extent he could recite it from memory. It’s not a particularly happy poem, but does I feel reflect his view that we humans were a particularly curious group of creatures. I’ve transcribed a few of my grandfather’s recipes (LLEBS and Mendip Snails in particular), so perhaps this is an opportune moment to transcribe some of his poetry.

I’ve been careful with his use of punctuation and capitalisation, which I think is particularly important in this poem, titled “What worth are words?”

In the Beginning was the Word, And the word was with God, And the Word was God. John 1.i

What worth are words?
What wonders have they wrought;
What woes wreaked?
Whence wisdom without words?

Can creatures less endowed
With the facilities of intellect and speech
Achieve the felicity
Of human life?
And contribute
To the furtherence of god’s creation
As can Homo Sapiens?

This world of ours,
In which we live
(And which we share with lesser breeds and species,)
Is as it is
(Today)
Because we,
Gifted (and beneficent?)
Have made it so.

All this we have achieved
Through words

Perhaps the time is come
For silence.

• Paul Leyton, 06 September 1974

This entry was posted on Monday, November 28th, 2005 at 9:43 am and is filed under Books, House, Media, Personal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.