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    Scribbles in the Margins: 50 Eternal Delights of Books SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKS ARE MY BAG READERS AWARDS!
    Scribbles in the Margins: 50 Eternal Delights of Books SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKS ARE MY BAG READERS AWARDS!
    Scribbles in the Margins: 50 Eternal Delights of Books SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKS ARE MY BAG READERS AWARDS!
    Ebook114 pages1 hour

    Scribbles in the Margins: 50 Eternal Delights of Books SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKS ARE MY BAG READERS AWARDS!

    By Daniel Gray

    3.5/5

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    About this ebook

    SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKS ARE MY BAG READERS AWARDS!

    We lead increasingly time-poor lifestyles, bombarded 24/7 by petrifying news bulletins, internet trolls and endless noises. Where has the joy and relaxation gone from our daily lives? Scribbles in the Margins offers a glorious antidote to that relentless modern-day information churn. It is here to remind you that books and bookshops can still sing to your heart.

    Warm, heartfelt and witty, here are fifty short essays of prose poetry dedicated to the simple joy to be found in reading and the rituals around it. These are not wallowing nostalgia; they are things that remain pleasurable and right, that warm our hearts and connect us to books, to reading and to other readers: smells of books, old or new; losing an afternoon organising bookshelves; libraries; watching a child learn to read; reading in bed; impromptu bookmarks; visiting someone's home and inspecting the bookshelves; stains and other reminders of where and when you read a book.

    An attempt to fondly weigh up what makes a book so much more than paper and ink – and reading so much more than a hobby, a way of passing time or a learning process – these declarations of love demonstrate what books and reading mean to us as individuals, and the cherished part they play in our lives, from the vivid greens and purples of childhood books to the dusty comfort novels we turn to in times of adult flux.

    Scribbles in the Margins is a love-letter to books and bookshops, rejoicing in the many universal and sometimes odd little ways that reading and the rituals around reading make us happy.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBloomsbury Publishing
    Release dateMay 18, 2017
    ISBN9781408883938
    Scribbles in the Margins: 50 Eternal Delights of Books SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKS ARE MY BAG READERS AWARDS!
    Author

    Daniel Gray

    Daniel Gray is a writer, broadcaster and magazine editor from York. He has published a host of critically acclaimed books on football and social history, edits Nutmeg magazine and presents the When Saturday Comes podcast. Daniel has presented history programmes on television and written for the BBC. His previous book, The Silence of the Stands, was shortlisted for Football Book of the Year at the Sunday Times Sports Book Awards 2023. @d_gray_writer

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    Reviews for Scribbles in the Margins

    3.5/5

    16 ratings3 reviews

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    • 5/5
      Any true book-lover will fully relate to these beautifully written 50 delights of books.
    • 3/5
      In these 50 short essays, Daniel Gray talks about the ways that book lovers are people of habit. We have preferred spots to read in comfortable chairs, favourite authors that you read regardless, cherished bookmarks and those little rituals that any bookworm goes through that to others seem pointless.

      So if you want to know about why people smell books, the protocols behind inspecting other peoples bookshelves and if there is a right point to give up on a book then this is a good place to start. But there is more, the delights in finding a dedication from one unknown person from another, poses questions that hang in the air, the joys of starting a crisp new book, the dilemmas and joys of choosing books to take on holiday trying to see what the person on the tube opposite you, is reading. Something that happens a fair amount in my house is trying to hide purchases from my (thankfully tolerant) another half. It is more of an art form now.

      I really enjoyed this delightful little book on the things that bookworms do. It has a certain charm and is really funny at times. If you are book obsessed then you'll smile and maybe even wince at some of the truths that he speaks. If you want to understand that person in your life who is obsessed by these rectangular pieces of sliced trees then this is a good place to start. 3.5 stars.
    • 4/5
      As the author states at the beginning the book's purpose is to give the reader reasons to be joyful, or at least smile. As such, this is a book of 50 short essays about the different joys of books: owning them, reading them, giving them, shelving them. Defacing Writing in them. The writing is a bit flowery - think G.K. Chesterton lite - but still (or because of, depending on your feelings about Chesterton's style) a joy to read. My personal favourite was "Sneaking new books past loved ones" as I found that one a tiny bit more relevant than the others. ;-)

    Book preview

    Scribbles in the Margins - Daniel Gray

    PREFACE

    Or, finding solace in pages

    It is obvious and easy for an author to proclaim the many charms of books. Here, though, I am writing as a reader. This particular book is an attempt to fondly weigh up what makes a book so much more than paper and ink, how reading is so much more than a hobby, a way of passing time or a learning process. It is a celebration of the trivia that so many of us revel in, even if we don’t quite realise it; an observational gallivant among impromptu bookmarks, the scents of bookshops and reading in bed.

    This Delights book was inspired by the chance find, in a pub, of another. In J. B. Priestley’s Delight, the author, a self-confessed ‘Grumbler’, toasts all that is good in the world. He is writing his way out of despondency with grim and grey post-war Britain. In short essays, we share his delight with ‘Shopping in small places’, ‘Frightening civil servants’, the ‘Sound of a football’, ‘Sunday papers in the country’, ‘Smoking in a hot bath’ and 109 other topics.

    Priestley sought to remind his readers that there remained simple pleasures in life, no matter how dark our surroundings may seem. Now, in a cynical, jaded world of distressing news bulletins and online trolls, a world monstrously faster and angrier than Priestley’s, this message is once more required. For so many of us, such sweet solace is to be found nestled among pages.

    These declarations of love are about the book as a physical, almost living, object, and the rituals that surround it. They demonstrate what books and reading mean to us as individuals, and the cherished part they play in our lives from the vivid greens and purples of childhood stories to the dusty comfort novels we turn to in times of adult flux. Books are an escape door open to all people, and this one is a cosy reminder of how and why.

    The long-predicted slow death of the book now seems unlikely, rendering this a good time for us to rejoice in the many and sometimes odd little ways in which the book makes us happy. Further, the place of books needs a cheerful salute, which I hope this volume is; books remain at the fulcrum of society, education and culture. They withstand and are sometimes at the forefront of technological change – ebooks are an ingenious invention and offer many joys of their own – and social trends. They still rescue many a difficult Christmas present conundrum.

    Books are more attainable, and therefore democratic, than ever before. Reflecting this, these delights are, I hope, universal indulgences that are felt by the prisoner and the priest, the library-addict and the owner of a personal library. Read them, think about your own, and then move on to another book . . .

    1

    Handwritten dedications in old books

    ‘To my Dear Husband. August 16th, 1936.’ ‘From Betty with love, Xmas ’49.’ ‘To Sarah, keep this with you as you go. Love, Mum and Ron x.’ Each of these sits snug in the top left-hand corner of an inside cover. It is almost as if the words know they shouldn’t be there and are attempting to creep from the page. The handwriting is always ornately joined – ‘Husband’ like an unfurled and manipulated streamer from a party popper; ‘Xmas’ like a careful Red Arrow vapour trail – and the ink is charcoal black or early-evening blue.

    The messages carried are celebratory and loving, though often in the simple and restrained language of their age. Sometimes, you sense that pen and ink liberated a book-giver not prone to spontaneous declarations of affection to go wild: ‘To darling Thomas, happy birthday, Father.’ There are in-jokes, too, knowing references we will never understand, and the vaguest silhouettes of lives.

    Such great unknowns of book dedications are a significant part of their charm. We are transported backwards to when this book was first chosen and given, a story within the story, but this time we will never know the ending. Did Thomas enjoy the book? Did the Dear Husband even read his? Did Sarah carry hers, and to where? As so many are dated like vital contracts, we can smother these notes in their historic periods – anything written to a son between 1900 and 1914 is especially poignant – but still we are only guessing at what happened next. Did the receivers like the book, perhaps lend it to friends? How many times have these words been loved before? Was it not really the title sought after, unwrapped impatiently on Christmas Day and gladness feigned? How did it end up in the second-hand shop, or in the warehouse of the online ‘used’ book retailer? Had it been cherished until death and house clearance? Or passed around, through the ages, a restless minstrel yet to find home?

    These paper time-machines shroud us in the comforting thought that a book has a life, and we are now a part of it. They add an extra layer of pleasure to buying an old book, and create a timeless connection between you and a long-gone reader. The two of you now share a never-to-be-revealed secret. Your lives may have been lived in very different worlds, but they are united by the exact same ink and characters.

    The next time you give a book, take a moment to write a few brief words to the gift’s recipient. For you are also reaching out a hand to someone who hasn’t even been born yet.

    2

    Visiting someone’s home and inspecting the bookshelves

    As a child, the houses I frequented had very few books on display. Most, including my home, had one or two shelves’ worth, usually part of a dining-room cabinet and behind glass, as if they were to be seen and not read. Scattered in no particular order would be an abridged encyclopaedia, a bible, a dictionary, a couple of Jilly Cooper novels, some hardback photobooks about war, a set of unread plainly-bound volumes received as a gift, titles about diets and canals pertaining to midlife crises and short-lived hobbies, a tired atlas and a large annual tying in with a BBC television series.

    The people who owned these shelves – my parents and my friends’ parents – were born just after World War Two. When they read, books were not bought, but borrowed. Libraries were necessary and useful, whereas living-rooms were for porcelain ornaments and the telly, and not showing off. Perhaps it is why in adulthood I am fixated with bounteous shelves, and indeed with building up my own collection – we never had bookshelves, now we must have two rooms containing them. They are my pampered generation’s version of indoor toilets. Or, perhaps I am just nosey.

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