Drowning in Books

I’m drowning in books. There’s a mini library in my office. I love books and once I read a book I find it almost impossible to part with it. Space is a consideration however. No matter how attached I become to the books I’ve read, there comes a time when, like the laundry overflowing the hamper, something has to give.
So, there I was, going through my office bookshelves the other day trying to decide which ones to put up for adoption. It’s usually a good bet that the local library will take loving care of them. As I browsed the rows of books it occurred to me that if I went by the titles alone, I could probably provide an accurate barometer of how well my career was going when I bought them. When I purchased Socratic Selling for example, I’ll bet I had just made a big sale to an important customer. I must have been feeling intelligent and full of unwarranted assumptions about my ability to understand Socrates, a prerequisite for anyone reading that book. On the other hand, I was probably feeling desperate when I picked up Send ‘Em One White Sock.
One of my books is entitled, Your Marketing Sucks. Sitting next to it is a book called, Buyers are Liars and Sellers are Too. I don’t recall being particularly angry with the world, but these titles certainly suggest I had some unresolved issues. By the time I bought How to Become a Rainmaker I must have been feeling much better.
Not all of my books are about sales and marketing of course. My collection includes 21 titles on public speaking alone. Is it possible there are 21 ways to make eye contact with your audience? When it comes time to prepare a speech it’s not like I consult any of these tomes for guidance or inspiration. I just write the speech, make sure there’s a beginning, middle and an end and hope that I get through my talk without valium or needing a 911 call to revive me. One thing I can tell you for certain is this: When you’re in front of an audience, having read Do Not Go Naked into Your Next Presentation will not make you sound like the next Martin Luther King Jr.
Then there are books on writing. I’ve stopped counting how many of those I have. Have you ever thought about writing a book? Permit me to offer you a tiny bit of advice. Buying a book that promises to teach you how to write one is no place to start. Over the years I’ve been a real sucker for books on writing. It’s easy to fall into that trap. “Say, I think I should write a novel. I know… I’ll buy a book that will show me how it’s done.” Thus, The Weekend Novelist, for example. By the time I finished reading that book I had decided to write a play. The Elements of Playwriting sits on my bookshelf next to the place I was going to put my Tony Award. You get the idea. Naturally, I have two books on column writing, neither of which is helping me get this column written.


I have even more books in my loft. I have a lot of biographies, works of fiction and social commentary. I still have a few books that were required reading in high school, like A Separate Peace, Red Badge of Courage and Jack London’s Call of the Wild. These shelves get overloaded too. When I absolutely must have more space for new books I wait until my wife is out shopping so I can pull hers off the shelf and take them to the library. I’m certain she would approve. Of course she may be dropping some of mine off when I’m out of town. I haven’t noticed really.
So why is it so hard to part with my books? You might think I’m eager to impress people with what I’ve read. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, if you picked one of these books and asked me to discuss it, I’d be in serious trouble unless it was made into a movie that I happened to catch on cable last week. I think deep down I believe that one day I’ll have time to read all of them again at a leisurely pace.
When that day comes I know just where I’m going to start too, at the beginning, which for me was Fun with Dick and Jane.

Copyright 2009 Len Serafino. All rights reserved.