On Sunday, our household took delivery of the entirety of the OUSFG library, some 2500 books packed into about 40 boxes. These OUSFG's members lugged down the road from its previous house, a flat which is normally a mere 2 minutes stroll away but becomes significantly further when you're carrying a couple of boxes of books through the drizzle. This procession obviously made an intriguing sight, as an elderly spectator asked me (laden with a load) where we were going. I mentally weighed the available explanations, considered that she was unlikely to understand or care about any of them, so chose the punchy "My house" and left it at that. In retrospect, I wish I'd taken the time to tell her "We intend to build a mile-high pyramid of science fiction and fantasy books in the field up the road" or "God has told us that the rain will not stop, and that we must rescue two of every author's work", but my arms hurt. The pain in my muscles, unaccustomed to heavy lifting and carrying of awkwardly sized boxes, lasted for a couple of days afterwards, but it was a good pain.
Afterwards we stacked, sorted and repacked the fuckers, and now have a living room full of reading material ranging in quality from excellent to execrable. It has been suggested that we should have a cull, of sorts, and relegate about half the library (the half that has never been read by anyone, nor should be) to a semi-permanent, at least semi-accessible location, thus making the good half easier to browse, transport and store. This raised the tantalising possibility of holding an OUSFG book-burning, perhaps during the autumn term for bonfire night, to rid ourselves of the disintegrating copies of pulp SF that the library slowly accretes as members charitably donate their unwanted books to it. It was generally agreed that, if such an event should take place, we should include at least one copy of 'Fahrenheit 451', for irony.
So, OUSFG library meetings every Sunday evening during term-time at our house then. I'd better buy some more tea, I suppose.
pleased