The Shelf of Essential Books

I have one bookshelf that's devoted to books I'm gonna read again and again. The keepers. Not reference books or hobbies such as astronomy (although I haven't added much to "Astronomy" recently. Star-gazing isn't what it used to be.).

You'll find a few novels on my keepers shelf. Barbara Kingsolver (guess which one?). Philip Lee Williams. Lucia St. Clair. Mostly, though, I reserve that shelf for books that have changed my life. Science. Religion. Philosophy. Poetry has its own shelf.

A two-and-a-half shelf can hold but so many books, so it's rare for me to add a book there. I have to throw out one to make room for a new one. Today I've done that. Added a new book.

I've added "Timefulness," by Marcia Bjornerud. Subtitle: "How thinking like a geologist can change the world."

I had a course in Geology oh, so many years ago. I recall discussing Wegener's book, "Floating Continents," and how that idea could explain so much about animal dispersal. There was no known mechanism. Then came Plate Tectonics, the geologist's equivalent of the theory of natural selection. Everything fell into place.

"Timefulness" gave me a modern view of the history of our planet, how it got to where it is, and where we're taking it. I read the book slowly. Every few pages I had to stop and think about what I'd read. It's that good. You need to read it, too.

Another new book I'd put on the essential shelf if I wasn't referring to it so often. "Dreyer's English," by Benjamin Dreyer. The man is a copy editor at Random House. You recall that I am a writer of prose. Dreyer gives me the modern rules of grammar. Things that confuse me such as "lay" and "lie." Now, that's helpful.

Under construction: A new western novel; Kingsville, Texas in 1955. And memoirs. As Harriette Austin told us, memoirs is what you remember. Not what actually happened. So look out! You might be in there.

Dac Crossley
April 3, 2019

“I do not wish women to have power over men, but over themselves.” -- Mary Wollstonecraft.

Comments

[Lesley A. Diehl]

I live in a small house with too, too many bookshelves. My goal this spring is to pare down and simplify, and that should apply to my books, but I find it so difficult to let go of any of them. It's one thing to give away a shirt, but somehow it's like giving away a part of myself when I let go of a book-like there aren't libraries and bookstores, heh?