Agenda free browsing

Since moving in to my library (and it's a lot less tidy now than it was in my earlier photos), I have barely remembered to renew my books from the public library, let alone check my position on the reservations list for the various books I have on order (and I normally do this on a daily basis).  Yesterday I returned a heap whose lustre was entirely extinguished by the luminousness of all my own books collected together, with no pang at parting with them at all.

But then I couldn't resist a browse.  For reasons which I can't quite fathom, a significant proportion of the books in the 'modern' section are by authors whose names are wholly unfamiliar to me, despite my devoted reading of the Saturday Times, Guardian, FT; the London Review of Books and the occasional Literary Review.  Which just goes to show how many books there are out there.  And so I had an experience which reminded me of one of my happiest childhood memories: browsing in the well stocked local children's library (yes, there was a whole separate library for the children).  This was a prelapsarian paradise of agenda free browsing.  I had no preconceptions of good books or bad books; no idea if they were recently written or Victorian; no inkling that some were approved of and others weren't.  There were simply books with interesting titles, books which sounded fun or interesting or odd or were the 100th book by my favourite author or the only book by my other favourite author and which I was reading for the 100th time.  Such innocent days!

So I had thirty minutes fun taking books by unknown authors off the the shelves.  And putting them back.  And coming home with a heap of books all by authors I've read before.  But all wonderful looking books.  Tracy Chevalier's Burning Bright (an historical about William Blake), Anita Brookner's A Closed Eye (I'm very much in the mood for some more quiet, serious Brookner), James Hamilton-Paterson's Amazing Disgrace (because its predecessor, Cooking With Fernet Branca was an absolute hoot), Something Rising (Light and Swift) by Haven Kimmel (because The Solace of Leaving Early was wonderful) and then finally Couples by John Updike (because although I hated A Prayer for Owen Meany, the only other Updike I've read, all the fuss over the new Roth which I can't participate in because I haven't read the previous Zuckerman novels makes me want to be contrary and read an alternative Great American Contemporary Author.)

Updated later.  D'oh!  Thanks to Annie for pointing out that I have confused Updike and Irving.  Easily done.  All these Not-yet Dead White Male Great American Contemporary Authors look the same to me.  Plus, have you noticed how they both start with vowels and have exactly the same number of letters in their names?  But at least I realise now that I did actually manage to leave the library with a book by an author I've never read.

Comments

[Annie]

You confused John Updike and John Irving. It was Irving who wrote "A Prayer for Owen Meany". Happy reading!

[Ron Slate]

Here's an invitation to come visit a new lit review and blog at www.ronslate.com.

[Andi Cumbo]

So no love for Owen Meany, huh? Do tell why?

[Lance Coon]

Updike's career is longer and, I think, the more distinguished of the two. His Rabbit books are a chronicle of America, 50s through 80s, and one called S is a wonderful read, a modern epistolary novel, very clever and funny, about a woman who runs away from her middle-class home and joins a commune. Enjoy!

[Red Room Librarian]

John Irving, John Updike, John Cheever. Yeesh, how does one keep them all straight!!