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My library
Because I compile a diverse range of books – especially reference titles – I have built up a library of more than 10,000 books. For many years, these were scattered around my house, and I set up my workspace in various rooms, including one that appeared to have a large void beneath it. I was talking to a friend about it when he asked, “why don’t you take the floor out?”
Several years and rather a lot of work later, I had a double-height galleried study-library with a sound system and cinema. My architect David Kemp entered it for a competition organized by the Sussex Heritage Trust which I am delighted to say we won, in the same year that Brighton Jubilee Library won the award for its rather more ambitious new building. I am very lucky: it’s a great place to work, watch films and hold parties. I have a fantastic view over medieval rooftops, across the South Downs to the sea. It’s easy to get distracted gazing out at it – but then reality bites and I have to get back to work.
Although I have a large collection of books, I have never thought of myself as a book collector. First editions, fine bindings and so on are of less interest to me than their contents. Book buying has changed with the coming of the Internet. If I want a specific book, I generally look on AbeBooks and Amazon. If I want the experience of book browsing, I go to secondhand and antiquarian bookshops (we have several excellent ones in my town), book fairs and especially charity shops, where I have bought some of my all-time favourite books. When I am working on a specific subject, I try to buy all the important books on it – and so the library grows inexorably... Getting rid of books – an appeal Have you ever tried getting rid of books? I have older copies of books where I have since bought new editions, or paperbacks where I have a good hardback, and books that I know in my heart of hearts I am never going to open, let alone read. However, deciding to chuck out a book is not without its emotional aspect: it’s not like throwing out an old pair of socks. Also, like many authors, I have a morbid fear of not having copies of my own books: remember the ‘J. R. Hartley’ Yellow Pages adverts on TV (1983–), in which he (played by the actor Norman Lumsden) scours bookshops for copies of his own Fly Fishing? As a consequence, I have gone to the opposite extreme and have far too many copies of a lot of my own books – but then again, what’s the ‘right’ number to keep? And where do you go to get rid of surplus books – a secondhand dealer, set up shop on ABE or eBay, donate them to a charity shop? Or perhaps a green solution is what’s required? In 1933 the Institute of Patentees published What’s Wanted: A List of 895 Needed Inventions, which included a machine for use in the home for disposing of books by pulping them – the resultant mulch could presumably be composted. Please contact me if you have any tips or have solved the perpetual dilemma of what to do with your unwanted books.
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