The Eight O’Clock
News May 2018
Ex Libris A few weeks ago I decided to have a culling session with my library. I knew that I would have to devote several hours to this exercise as like times before I would be waylaid by memories. My thoughts would be filled with the person who gave me the book, the spot where I’d read it for the first time or the fact that the book sits on the shelf and is not yet read—and I’d start reading. In order to read more and acquire more books, space has to be made but it’s so very hard to choose which books to send away, which to extend their lives and say as Chaucer said at the end of Troilus and Criseyde, ‘Go, litel book!’ For me a ‘home without books is like a tree without birds’ and ‘a home without a dog is just a house’. Would if I could also collect dogs like I collect books! After the culling session, two shelves were laid bare and wait in anticipation for the new occupants. Some years ago, I read a wonderful essay in Time Magazine entitled, ‘Would you mind if I borrowed this book?’ It is erudite, witty and somewhat true, describing the dread a booklover may feel on lending a book never to see it returned despite placing an Ex Libris sticker in the inside cover. Booklovers may also wonder what people may think of them on scanning their bookcases. What do their choices reveal about themselves? Roger Rosenblatt in the Time essay wrote, ‘Our books are ourselves, our characters, our insulation against those very people who would take away our books. There on that wall, Ahab storms. Hamlet mulls. Molly Bloom says yes, yes, yes. Keats looks into Chapman, who looks at Homer, who looks at Keats. All this happens on a bookshelf continually—while you are out walking the dog, or pouting or asleep. The Punic wars rage; Emma Bovary pines; Bacon exhorts others to behave the way he never could. Here French is spoken. There Freud. So go war and peace, pride and prejudice, decline and fall, perpetually in motions as sweeping as Milton’s or as slight as Emily Dickenson—considering the grass. Every evening Gatsby looks at Daisy’s green light, which is green forever. Every morning Gregor Samsa discovers that he has been transformed into a giant May 2018 Eight O’Clock News
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insect’. So little time, so many books people have said and the Bible itself is a Book of many books that I must confess I have not read from cover to cover. Therefore, I can highly recommend, the App suggested by Ev, BiOY—the Bible in One Year by Nicky Gumbel. James Bryce said, ‘The worth of a book is to be measured by what you can carry away from it’ and for me one of the most transformative books is Milton’s epic poem Paradise Lost. He says in Book 1 that his purpose in the writing was ‘to justify the ways of God to men’. When I studied this masterpiece many years ago it provided a very real link in my further reading and exploration of the Bible and I came to know the following to be true: For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. (Hebrews 4:12) So is the Bible just another book? Not so, according to Mahatma Gandhi. ‘You Christians look after a document containing enough dynamite to blow all civilization to pieces, turn the world upside down and bring peace to a battle-torn planet. But you treat it as though it is nothing more than a piece of literature.’ - Cheryl Anderson
HAPPY SPECIAL BIRTHDAY To
Sally Palmer (2/5) ‘... For whoever touches you touches the apple of God’s eye ... ‘ Zechariah 2:8