Books in the time of COVID-19
Our cabin in Jackson Hole.
In the era of shelter-in-place, in our new quarantine lifestyle, the books we surround ourselves with matter more than ever. I have been home at my cabin in the woods pretty much since I returned from a trip to New York, more than two weeks ago.
I normally avoid writing about my own books, my home, here at Foxtail Books. For one thing, it would not appropriately show the scale of services Foxtail offers its clients: most projects are in homes a bit grander than mine, and involve thousands of books, rather than a few hundred. As Foxtail Books, I design spacious home libraries with room for objects, art, or an expanding collection. In my own, humble living space, shelves are filled to capacity.
I also avoid showing my own books as a matter of principle. As a librarian, I stand for certain values regarding reading and books, and I find those values easier to illustrate with a wide variety of books and homes, rather than by pretending my own taste sets some standard (on the contrary).
There is also the dilemma of the shoemaker’s children running barefoot, as they say. The last thing I want to do after organizing a client’s books all week is organize ours. It’s been over a year since I paid much attention to our books. Even those that were once in order have fallen into disarray during a busy winter of travel for work.
Yet here I am in quarantine, several projects postponed, the world outside turned upside down. One can only spend so many hours immersed in the news. I more or less “hibernated” Foxtail Books last week, in terms of business communications and social media. I needed to get my bearings, to connect with friends and family, and to attempt to settle into a changing reality. This week, however, I decided to bring some simple order and reason to the space within these four walls, if they were not to be found elsewhere. It was time to be a librarian for my own books, for once.
My husband Lewis and I live on the edge of Bridger-Teton National Forest, in Wilson, Wyoming. We’re just over the Snake River from Jackson Hole. We can see the Grand Teton from our back door. As you might imagine, shelves fit haphazardly in a 1970s cabin -- yet another reason I don’t often take photos of them. Bookcases sit in dark corners of my triangle-shaped office, squeezed between the desk and the piano. Additional shelving barely fits in a low-ceilinged loft, reached from our living space by climbing a ladder. Some shelves double as staging zones when I am curating a collection or planning a trunk show (our own books relegated to wherever they may fit). And yes, there are the piles -- under the coffee table, under the bed. On our dressers, dining table, and windowsills.
If you are familiar with my work, you know how much I love books. I love them for their content, I love them as cultural objects, I love them for their aesthetic value. Having now been working with books and the people who enjoy them for 15 years, the way that I encounter them in my own life has evolved. My job is to assemble home library collections of beautiful, sometimes expensive books, for clients around the country. I watch four- and five-figure rare editions sold at our trunk shows. Occasionally, my job is to help people get rid of collections. For many years I was a public librarian, responsible for 100,000 volumes — practicalities from purchasing to “weeding",” from repair to replacement.
So beside my affection for these delightful objects sits the knowledge that they will come, and they will go. I swing from reverence to detachment. Books are dear to me, but they are also ephemeral, an organic part of everyday life. All of this is of course a terrible excuse to let one’s collection fall into disorder. I believe that the books in a home are only as valuable as the meaning their owner assigns to them. In a growing news cycle of fear and instability, in expectation of seemingly endless amounts of time at home, these objects are more precious than ever. Last month it might have been easy to say “Books will always be there for us, but they are only objects. All are replaceable.” This month, they feel more like old friends. They are markers of my own history, they are opportunities to learn, to escape, and to connect with the human experience. They have the ability to provide the comfort and hope I am craving. How had I neglected them for so long?
This week I decided to take over our bar cart, beneath the whiskey, gin, and tequila bottles, as a home for the books we have read in the last year or so.
We are messy readers, in this household. I start too many books at once, keep teetering piles by the bed, and wait for a favorite to rise to the top. I have been known to keep a book half-read, promising myself I’ll get back to it, for over a year before admitting defeat. My husband flips through books about backcountry ski runs over his breakfast, then leaves books splayed open on the table. He falls asleep in novels at night without marking his place. We are not afraid to dog-ear or underline (in pencil, mind you). My office is a constantly rotating series of clients’ books; new acquisitions, things for the bookbinder, consignments, and more.
I believe that books are meant to be used and enjoyed. While ideally they are shelved or stacked where they look nice, it is a higher priority that they are accessible. That goal is a particular challenge in a house with little room for shelves.
The majority of the work was to get the books in order that we use most often (and thus, don’t always return to their shelves). We keep the majority of our resources for living in the mountains (flower guides, bird books, local history, trail hiking/skiing/climbing guides) up in the loft, but having to climb a ladder isn’t particularly convenient. We pull down seasonal needs as the seasons arrive, to be left on the coffee table for a few months (trails will start to dry out in May!). There was less organizing to be done in the other half of the loft, where we keep books that mark other chapters of our lives: those on mental health from when my husband was in school studying social work. Sailing guides. Writer’s references. Dozens of titles from the years I devoured costume history and the sociology of fashion. All of the books about books, bibliographies of first editions, of Wyoming and the West, live in my office. I reorder them regularly, depending on what I might be working on at the time.
Resources aside, our pleasure reading is divided into books we have enjoyed and books we have not yet read. This week I decided to take over our bar cart; The shelves beneath the whiskey, gin, and tequila bottles are now the home for books we have read in the last year or so (they were starting to take over our bedroom). My plan is to let them accumulate until they need to be sorted into those we’ll keep, long term, and those we’ll donate. Recent reads out in our living space make us happy, and remind us to talk about them and share them with others.
But what does it mean, any more, to share books with others at home? I have caught myself wondering about plans for this summer, or next year, “when things return to normal.” That’s a fantasy, of course. I believe that many elements of our lives will never be the same. My hope is that we get to a time in which my collection can again fall into a beautiful mess, because life returns to some semblance of the health, stability, and the busyness that we all took for granted just a month ago.
It has been a comfort and a distraction to tidy up and sort through our books, and to take care of our home. I found things I have meant to read for months or years. I returned to old favorites that make me happy to page through again. It seems it will be a while until friends can physically snoop through our shelves again, until we can connect with others about things we’ve both read, or what we ought to read next, as usual. All the more reason to share our shelves digitally. To swap suggestions and favorites here, and on social media. I wish I could offer you a cup of tea, a glass of wine. Thanks for stopping by.
Christy and her husband Lewis earlier this winter at Phelps Lake.
Are you organizing your own collection as you socially distance? If you’re not sure where to begin, consider my article How We Organize Says Who We Are, from a few years back.
Stay tuned to Foxtail Books on Instagram and Facebook, and keep in touch through our newsletter (sign up below). I’ll be sharing more ideas on how to organize in any size home, as well as bookish distractions and inspiration.