Books as Ballast

Some more very good reasons (because we need these touchstones from time to time) - this time from John Updike why physical books will not become obsolete. He looks at the book as furniture, as sensual pleasure, as souvenir ... and as ballast (one category I hadn't thought of) :

As movers and the moved both know, books are heavy freight, the weight of refrigerators and sofas broken up into cardboard boxes. They make us think twice about changing addresses. How many ageing couples have decided to stay put because they can't imagine what to do with the books? How many divorces have been forestalled by love of the same jointly acquired library? Books hold our beams down; they act as counterweight to our fickle and flighty natures. In comparison, any electronic text-delivery device lacks substance. Further, speaking of obsolescence, it would be outdated in a year and within 15 as inoperable as my formerly cutting-edge Wang word-processor from the mid-Eighties. Electronic equals (e-quals, if you will) immaterial, Ariel to our earthy Caliban. Without books, we might melt into the airwaves, and be just another set of blips.

The essay appears in his collction Due Considerations: Essays and Criticism.

Talking about Updike, the BBC is repeating a Hard Talk interview with him today recorded in 2004. I caught half of it earlier (thanks to messages from friends) and hope to catch a repeat later.

Isabel and the Family Saga

I was sad that I missed Isabel Allende being interviewed on the BBC's Hardtalk by Sarah Montegue the other day about her new memoir The Sum Of Our Days. It isn't possible to watch the programmes on the BBC website anymore now that they are changing to a new system (the BBC i-Player) which we can't subscribe to here (yet?). But some kind soul put a fair chunk of the interview on YouTube (Part 1, Part 2).

Allende talks about how she draws on her family for inspiration, how this is the second memoir written to Paula, her daughter who died, and also about how she writes.

What you may not know - she starts every new book on January 8th, and before that doesn't even know what the first sentence will be, let alone the plot!

Best quote from the interview :

If I had to chose between a relative and a good story, I'd chose the story.

There's more about the book on the Harper Collins website.