A week ago, I was made redundant, a feeling from which I have still not fully recovered. For the last four weeks I was told that I had to show up to work and prepare for this transition. It is meant to be a time where the company can offer support and help try and find new work. Basically, it is a period of time where you are stuck feeling unwanted, not wanting to do any work and waiting to exit from the company. I thought that maybe I could use this time to write and catch up on my blogging or reading but this was not the case. The emotional rollercoaster left me feeling like I was in a slump and not wanting to do much of anything. Every call I got to check up on my felt like I was on suicide watch. It was far more difficult that I could even put into words.
However, I knew I did not want to be there, I was somewhat excited to leave this company. I have been there for twelve years and it felt like the only way I would step out and try something new. So I was excited for the change as well as constantly feeling unwanted. It was a weird cocktail of emotions. It was never really worried about my future, I think I have a plan, I just have to see how it plays out. It was never about the unemployment, I was actually looking forward to some time off, and I had plenty of tasks I wish to complete. It was just the complete combination of everything else and not really knowing how to express everything going on in my head.
Writing about it is not even helping. Usually I find that I am able to fully understand my thoughts when I try to write them down. I have often realised that I felt a particular way while writing. It is weird to discover an emotion you did not know you were having. I am just not very good at expressing myself. Maybe growing up as an outsider has dulled my ability to fully understand my emotions. I know I am not very good at social interactions, so maybe there is a connection.
One of the main tasks for the first week of my redundancy was to sort out some bookshelves. My wife gave me a new bookshelf for my birthday and I had decided to use the two bookshelves in the study as my primary shelves. These are the shelves you see when I film a video for BookTube, so maybe I should fill them with all my books in translation. Obviously, I am new to this niche, so I have combined it with books I love and books I know I want to read. However, the majority of the books on these shelves, I have not read yet, so it pretty much my TBR shelves. I do have a priority pile of books to read in the bedroom, but these are all the other books I want to read. Let’s call it my aspirational reading list.
I added all these books to the shelves in alphabetical order, and it filled up quicker than I expected. The plan is to cull the English books first, but I am hoping this will be a way to start building my library. In other words, if all my other books were to be culled, I would be okay with that. These are the ones I want to keep more than the others. Obviously, I am not going to cull my other books, there are three other shelves full of books, but I am planning to do a major purge. I know I have changed as a reader, and some of these books are never going to be read.
This is my starting point, and I already realise there are gaps that need to be filled. I am missing some Bulgakov, Dostoevsky, and Bolaño. These are authors I love and want to read everything they have written. I have discovered books I have completely forgot about, books I want to re-read right now and books that bring back good memories. A collection of John Keats poetry that remind me of my honeymoon, a Dashiell Hammett novel that I read in Paris, or a beautiful edition of Frankenstein that my wife gave me for our wedding anniversary. These memories and books are all safe together.
My other shelves were never organised in any way and I just love looking through the shelves not knowing what I will discover but with these new shelves I did want the organisation. During the process of sorting the books, I left a whole shelf for a letter that I expected to fill up quickly, like the M’s and N’s but it was never those selves that took up so much space. It was the K’s or the B’s that I was surprised to find the most books. I know it is going to be a lot of work to sort when adding new books to the shelves, but part of the pleasure is going through my shelves.
My dream would be to sort my books out by continent, but I do not own enough books for that, yet. I would easily fill a bookshelf of North American literature but my focus in books in translation would be neglected. I know Europe would be easy to manage but I never want to forget about the rest of the world. I have been focusing on South America lately, but I think more of the books I have read came from the library. Which I will have to start to do more now I do not have a regular income, but these two shelves are there to remind me that I need to read these books and that I need to start filling the gaps. Which will mean, eventually I will need more bookshelves and then I may have enough to sort by continent. These are dreams and goals with my books, I might even have to go through and categorise all these books like a library. Keep track of them in a database, I have the time to do that.
One of the things I love to do is to go to my shelves and look at the books, I know it does not help me keep to my own reading plans, but I just like to be distracted by other books. I am that kind of nerd that is obsessed with literature. You know I am just looking for new ways to talk books with the world.
I often do the same thing – when I’m at my parents’ house, I’ll go downstairs where all my film books are stored, stand in front of the shelves and just LOOK at all of them. Sometimes I’ll just take a quick glance, sometimes I’ll stand there for longer, and sometimes I’ll randomly pull some books off the shelves and flip through them. I think one of the reasons why I purged all of my fiction TBR at my apartment is because I’m mentally trying to prepare myself for (finally) bringing my film books home with me. But, I need sturdy bookshelves for them first. I plan on buying a few in the New Year.
I like your idea of wanting to organize your books by location. I think that’s a great idea and one you’re bound to achieve eventually. I know how much you love translated fiction! I hope you’re doing well 🙂
One day, I will organise by continent, I need more books before I could do that.
I’ve often found myself staring at your books too wanting to read them. Although, I’m pretty sure your library has grown exponentially since the last time I saw it and I still haven’t managed to get to the actual reading part successfully. Hopefully, the Christmas holidays will change that. At least for a few weeks.
My bookshelves are very different now, you are missing out