My Old Friends: My Books
By Mike Apodaca, High Desert Branch
Inspired by the organization in Jenny Margotta’s library (I’m not kidding, you should see her spreadsheet on every book she owns), I decided to bring my personal library under greater control. I’ve been working for the last couple of weeks to make my almost two 2000 books more accessible by labeling them with their Dewey decimal numbers. In the process, I’m finding some books that I will never read. These I am donating to the public library.
I’ve always looked at books as mental Tupperware. It’s where we communication-oriented humans preserve ideas, information, and persuasive arguments. When I read a good book, I feel like I’m having a conversation with the author. Through my reading, I have interacted with some of the greatest minds. Sometimes, I learn. Oftentimes, I argue and write my thoughts in the margin. And sometimes, I weep or laugh out loud. Each book I read is a unique experience with the writer.
When I read a book, I outline it. My thought is that I should never have to read the same book (word-for-word) twice. I try to underline key phrases so that, later, I can come back to the book and get the gist of each page with just a few words. I can usually reread an entire book in a matter of minutes.
Often, I come across sentences or paragraphs that are too good not to keep. They are jewels. It could be great dialogue, or an amazing description, the perfect turn of phrase, or an argument made by a worthy sage. I bracket these precious finds, write the topic in the margin, and then list it in my own index in the back of the book. After I’m finished reading the book, I type the index into a Word file. This file is now 295 pages long, single-spaced (I’ve been doing this for a while). This provides me a searchable database of every good quote I’ve ever read. So, say I want a quote about hope. I just type in the word and the file will tell me every place where the word hope is found in every book in my library (there are 50 entries). And this is why I’m organizing my books. Sometimes books can be hard to find. I have spent too much time trying to hunt down a book to find just the right quote. Soon, they’ll all be numbered.
Spending some time in organization can save us time in the long run. Something as simple as putting our files and folders in some kind of order on our computer can be extremely helpful.
There are many time-saving ways we can organize our lives (calendars, databases, phone directories, email address folders, financial ledgers, are just a few). An investment of time now will pay off in dividends later. I’m not as organized as Jenny, but I’m a step closer.
“My Old Friends: My Books” originally appeared in the October 2023
Inkslinger, newsletter of the High Desert Branch.