While a young student, the great Muslim theologian al-Ghazali was stopped on the road by a band of robbers. They intended to take the notebooks that he’d gathered from his time studying with the masters at Gorgan, in present-day Iran. He pleaded with the chief robber not to take them. They were worth everything to him and nothing to anyone else. The robber finally agreed, but as he did so he made clear his disdain for any knowledge that could be lost so easily. For the next three years, Ghazali devoted himself to committing everything in those notebooks to memory, verbatim.

It reminded me of one way that I’ve dealt with the problem of books only “owned” through repeated borrowings, and bookshelves too small to contain all of the work in progress. Get a good camera and photograph the bookshelf, and then use the photograph as the point of reference for when you need to jog your memory about books you should be thinking about. This can also work for piles of books assembled in any book-rich environment (bookstores, libraries, friends homes).

My biggest dream is to own a home that is big enough to house my aprox. 2,000 books on floor-to-ceiling bookshelves! (Actually just owning a home would be nice, I could fit my books into just about any size space when that space is mine and I can hang shelves from ceilings and build them into walls etc) Right now, I rent a small apartment and most of my books are in storage where I don’t have immediate access to them. I can’t wander past my bookshelves and catch those little memories that sweetly drift over me when I make eye-contact with them; can’t see them, touch them, or smell them; can’t delve between their covers to rediscover their mysteries …. and it pains me deeply!

People who don’t understand, tell me to get rid of them and stop paying those outrageous storage fees. But of course, I just can’t dump all my dearest friends that way! I keep hoping that one day I will have that house I dream of and then my books will live with me forever ??

Anyway …

I shared your article with my facebook friends, including a group called “Permanence Matters” who are working to spread the word about the importance of the Permanence of the written word … they put it much better than I can: “We are an initiative designed to educate and activate the literary community against the rise in the use of low-quality paper in current books. We are book lovers, readers, and care deeply about the written word.” You might want to check out their page and join in the discussion!

Thanks again for the great article! Take care.