Published Aug 16. 2019 - 4 years ago
Updated or edited Feb 14. 2021

All your book are belong to us!

A rather far fetched transcript of an internet meme* actually quite well covers my book situation right now.

Kim unboxing
Kim unboxing
Martin Joergensen

I spent new years evening 2018/19 together with my wife Birgitte, my brother Carsten and my good friend Kim and his wife Connie. Food was good, drink was good (Kim is a wine connoisseur) and of course the company was good.
During the evening we talked about this and that, and since Kim is a fisherman like myself, a little fishing talk sneaked its way into the conversation too. At one point we ventured into my lair to look at some fly or photo related stuff (Kim is also a photographer), and Kim noticed my book shelves. Kim is also into books, having authored a few, translated and edited some and been involved in publishing quite a lot. He mentioned that he also had a nice collection of fishing books, which he had actually considered getting rid of.

The evening went on, and after a delightful desert (thanks to my wife for that!) and some coffee, Kim mentioned that he would actually seriously consider giving me his books!
He felt that the thought of his books finding a "good home" was a comforting one, and really couldn't think of any other ways of getting rid of them, apart from selling them, which would probably be a fairly futile thing to do, since many would essentially be considered "worthless" when seen from a market perspective.
But as we all know, there's no such thing as worthless when it comes to fishing books, which all represent a value in some sense. But just not a value that can be expressed in a price tag or that would actually bring in substantial money.
So Kim thought that the books would be better off joining my books in my book shelves.
And who was I to argue!?

And who was I to argue!?

Just a couple of days ago, Kim called
"Are you home?".
"Yes" I replied.
"I'll come by with the books" he announced.
"I'll have the coffee ready!" was my response.

Less than an hour later he was in the door with a heavy box of books.
I put coffee on the table, and he started unpacking and going through each, telling a little story about some, quickly leafing through many and checking whether I had that particular book already.
I did have a few, and he put those aside to bring on to some other good cause.
It was quite overwhelming, and I could see more than one title, which had been on my wishlist for a while.
"I'll get the next box!" he said, and soon returned with another box.
The scene repeated itself, and my dining table was slowly filling up with books.
Woot!

The piles
The piles
Martin Joergensen

There's one more box! The last one" he said and continued to fetch yet another fully loaded box.
When we were done with that one, he filled one of the now empty boxes with the leftovers, which were books I already had, books "off topic" like on hunting and commercial fishing, and a couple he wanted to keep.
That left me with two boxes full, now piled up on my dining table, probably close to 100 new titles for my library.
Woot and a half!

We chatted on for a while, finished our coffee and Kim left, while I assessed the bounty and joyfully ran my fingers through a few of the "new" books. Most were actually not new, and a majority of them were Danish, Swedish and Norwegian "classics", many hard to find and several on my wanted list.
I started moving the books to my office, and started planning for their placement in the shelves. It's going to be quite a job to fit them in, but to quote Baldrick: "I have a cunning plan", and will find space for them.
Right now they are stacked up against my desk, two piles the full height of the table, a few having already been pried out and put on top of the table for reading in a not too distant future.
Kim continued his coffee trip, and dropped many of the remaining books off with another good friend, Per, and hopefully only brought home the few titles he wanted to keep for himself.
What a great gesture.
Double woot!

Grünwald, Laks!

Johansson, Du vandrende laks

Johansson, ...du underbara laxfluga...

Martin Joergensen

* In case you are wondering about the meme, this is it.

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