Dusting Off Those Pages

Last weekend I was in a cleaning mood, and I indulged that mood.  This wasn't just normal cleaning, but the mood to deep clean, sort, toss out, scrub -- a "Fall Cleaning", if you will.  One of the things I really wanted to do was clean all of my books.  That has carried over to this weekend.

My books and book shelves get a quick dusting at least once a week, but the books themselves don't actually get  moved and dusted individually on a very regular basis.  It is something that I enjoy doing when I can do it, but not something that can be done every week.  I have HUNDREDS of books!  And the problems with cleaning each one individually are many.

  To clean my books I take all of them off the shelf I'm cleaning, keeping them in the correct order, because, of course, they DO have an order.  After the shelf is cleaned, then I pick up the first book on that shelf, wipe it down, front, back, spine, top, side, and bottom of the pages (while the book is closed), then I open the front, dust inside the front flyleaf, open the back, dust inside the back flyleaf, then flip the pages in an attempt (probably a futile attempt) to "air out" the book.  Then one by one each book gets re-shelved.

While doing this chore I re-acquaint myself with books I haven't thought of in a long time; long-forgotten treasures from my childhood; vintage copies bought for the pleasure of ownership, if not for reading; well-thumbed copies that are read on a regular basis; new purchases that have been assigned their own places on a shelf, but that, for whatever reason, haven't been read yet; various cookbooks; an attractive copy of Mr. Boston Official Bartender's Guide, which I cannot remember why I bought; all of my school yearbooks, whose pages require a quick perusal, a smile at the pictures of me and my friends, a quick nostalgic reading of the autograph pages.  All of this is time-consuming, but so enjoyable.

I hope everyone else is having an enjoyable weekend, too!