Books
As I clear my work office as part of my transition to a new chapter in my life (I am still reluctant to think of it as retirement), I am considering what to do with the books that adorn my bookcases. There are textbooks that I haven’t touched in twenty years. There are great fiction and non-fiction books that give me an inward smile when I see them. I have also not cracked them open in years. I have an almost absolute aversion to throwing books away. Nazi book burnings come to mind. Books are to be respected, as are their authors. But what happens (especially with textbooks) when they become obsolete? The books on my shelves have become merely decorative, a sort of eye candy for intellectual pursuits.
Take them home, you say? Well, you haven’t seen my basement and garage. I have decided to give most of my textbooks to my colleagues who want them. They are much younger than I am. And they have an interest in seeing and browsing through them. Finding a new home for my old books gives me the warm feeling of giving and of transmitting a part of myself to others.
I have some books that I revere. There is the 1909 edition of Osler’s “Modern Medicine”, that I picked up next to a trash receptacle in my apartment building in Brooklyn more than forty years ago. A retired physician made his own decision about what to do with his books. The six volume series is exquisitely written, and has great black and white and color photographic images. Alongside the trash receptacle was also “Gray’s Anatomy”. It is on my bookshelf in the office today. These are definitely staying with me.
Dr. Osler had a personal library of over eight thousand books during his lifetime. Students and residents from Johns Hopkins would come to his house ( nicknamed “The Open Arms”) to use them for education and research. In 1919, the year of his death, he bequeathed his library to McGill University in Montreal. His library, which includes a handwritten edition of “Modern Medicine” is now housed in a temperature controlled room at McGill. I had the opportunity to see the library, which also houses his and his wife’s ashes. The story goes that his wife, a widow and distant relative of Paul Revere, would not marry Dr. Osler until he finished his textbook.
I am not Dr. Osler, but I can aspire to the maintenance of the books that are important to me.
My books are part of what defines me in my professional life. Seeing them packed away is a bit jarring, adding to the sense of sterility that my now corporate practice has. As Kurt Vonnegut would say in his book Slaughterhouse-Five, “So it goes”.