Quotes from the book (5)

In preparation for the Book Swishing Event, which - if I may add - was a great success, I noticed that my bookshelf contains different types of books. And I don't mean fiction versus non-fiction, but the label that comes with your bond with the book under consideration.

I suppose we all have at least one book we would like to take with us into the grave, right? Which is a stupid idea, by the way, since it's too dark to read in there. These are obviously unswishable.

On the other kind of the spectrum, you have the books which are deliberately kept out of display. Hidden in the basement, gathering dust and mould in the anonymous cardboard moving boxes, or behind other books, like the least popular kid on the class picture, if your bookcase allows a double row of books. Strangely enough these species are unswishable too, as they are very likely to jeopardize your street credibility. Insofar as you frequent circles in which 'books' and 'street credibility' can be used in the same sentence. Avoiding any verb expressing an act of destruction, that is.

A third kind of books, which I am particularly fond of, is the unexpected discovery. It's the paperback version of having a memorable conversation with a random person, or dancing the night away on a band you had never heard of. This is usually the kind of books I prefer to keep as a birthday present back-up plan. The book which I just finished falls under this category: The terrible privacy of Maxwell Sim by Jonathan Coe.

Most of us would have difficulties using the words 'toothbrush', 'SatNav' and 'Chinese cardgames' in one sentence - not me, of course, I just did - but Coe brew them into an enjoyable story. Containing the following passage:

In days gone by, before motor-ways, before by-passes, traveling through England must actually have involved visiting places. You would drive along high streets (or ride your horse along them, if we're going to go way back) and stop at pubs in the town centre (or staging posts or coaching inns or whatever they used to be called). Now, the entire road network seemed to be set up to prevent this from happening. The roads were there to stop you from meeting people, to ensure that you passed nowhere near any of the places where humanity congregates. A phrase came to me, then - a phrase that Caroline was fond of repeating. 'Only connect'. I think it was from one of the fancy writers she was always trying to get me to read. It occurred to me now that whoever designed England's roads had precisely the opposite idea in mind: 'Only disconnect'.

Sadly enough, there's also the category of books which were recommended to you but turned out to be quite a disappointment. In that case, keep in mind that this is definitely a swishable book...