Weekword

This week my namesake Sally picked the word book. It made me think of a slang phrase I like to use, "Let's book" - which made me go away and look at where it came from. Interesting!

I grew up in a book house. At work, we often try to guess how many of our pupils are also growing up in book houses, meaning anywhere where books are valued and collected. I hypothesise that they are the ones who don't write in the text books, or tear corners of their exercise books out to write notes, since they have been taught a little more respect for tomes than that.

I currently live in a book house, too. I have a shelf above me as I sit here, full of all my university text books (which, if I'm honest, were not well thumbed during my degree and have been even less used since) and a random selection of History textbooks I keep for when I need to set cover. Donwstairs is another heaving bookcase, which holds them two rows deep. I am getting rid of them, a few at a time. I love having lots of books around and in an ideal world I would have a library, but we don't have the space for that really.

Of course, now I have my Kindle, so the need for actual books is diminished. I have lost count of the number of people who have said, "But it's not like a real book! It doesn't smell like a book!" which is very true. However, it is better than a book for me, because I keep it with me all the time and that means I read more, which makes it a winner in my eyes.

Unfortunately, it does not fulfill the secondary purpose of books - to sit prettily on a shelf, looking inviting. I think growing up in a book house creates an unusual love for this secondary purpose. I would spend hours staring at my parents' bookshelves, and my grandparents' bookshelves, and my aunt and uncle's bookshelves. I was in the library every month, and up in the adult section by the age of 12, having exhausted the paltry 15 shelves of teen literature. Being around a lot of books is calming, and reassuring, and full of promise. And can create familiarity in unfamiliar surroundings - when I went to Cornwall with my friends last month, I was delighted to walk into a bedroom with two walls lined with old testimonials and Methodist texts - it was like being back at my gran's house. I was up late that night re-reading From Witchcraft To Christ.

Good word this week! Pop along to Sally's blog to read the other entries and find out who'll be hosting next week.