Books Everywhere

Image credit: ntr23

Books in the air,
Books everywhere,
Like Dorothy’s Silver Shoes,
They can take you anywhere.

The inspiration for this short verse came from two books. First, in A Passion for Books, I chanced upon this charming poem (p. 139):

My Pop is always buying books:
So that Mom says his study looks
Just like an old bookstore. The bookshelves are so full and tall,
They hide the paper on the wall,
And there are books just everywhere,
On table, window-seat, and chair,
And books right on the floor.

And every little while he buys
More books, and brings them home and tries
To find a place where they will fit,
And has an awful time of it.

Once, when I asked him why he got
So many books, he said, “Why not?”
I’ve puzzled over that a lot.

(From Jane, Joseph, and John, by Ralph Bergengren.)

To someone who frequently buys books, the unpleasant prospect of books stacking everywhere in my house is a certainty (just a matter of time).

Thanks to advances in scanning and search technology, such a scenario can be avoided. Books have taken alternative forms such as audio files and pdf documents. They can be accessed over the air (think Wi-Fi).

Second, from googling the phrase “books in the air”, I found a 2002 diary post that made reference to a magical artifact in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. It was the pair of silver shoes that the Witch of the North took from the deceased, wicked Witch of the East and gave to Dorothy. At the end of her adventures, Glinda the Good Witch of the South revealed how the Silver Shoes could carry her to any place in the world, including back home.

So it is with books.