Books Against Global Warming

BOOKS AGAINST GLOBAL WARMING

 

We are all aware, by now, that insulating our homes and reducing the energy required to manufacture insulating materials must be a prime target in our fight to prevent global warming,  yet no-one  has seen that BOOKS provide a simple and effective solution – by supplying an abundant and efficient insulating material which requires no further manufacturing processes prior to  DIY installation.

 

Initially, it will be necessary to launch of my book insulation system amongst those older readers who still own books and who thus might already have a basic appreciation of the warming effect of a good collection of books placed against an outside wall.  I also assume that this same sophisticated readership will already know the pleasure of handling a well-produced book:  a well-developed tactile sense is vital to the choice of suitable books for insulation. We can be less confident that the young still read but, at least, we can begin by concentrating upon the increasing number living in cardboard packing cases – even if, at present, their appreciation of thermal properties is limited to the relatively unsophisticated literary texts on the sides of their homes.  It should not, however, be impossible for us humanist educators to transmit to these young the love of the world of books and thereby take a whole segment of society from unemployment into the very spearhead of a new insulation trade salesforce.

 

Apart from job creation, there are other social advantages to my proposals but I must first describe the advantages of the material itself.  To begin with, it is cheap, compared with other current means of insulating the home:  for example, a second-hand set of Conrad will, pound for pound, fill more cubic space than your proprietary brand of fibre-glass insulation and will be readily available, as that author's prose style is no longer accessible to today's students.  Indeed, lecturers find it unprofitable to recommend long books of any sort and so sets of our author, less Heart of Darkness, or of, say, George Eliot, less Silas Marner, are readily available and retrievable from disuse.

 

Another aspect of books which, as far as I can ascertain, has never been properly appreciated before, is that they can be easily glued together, can readily accept rawlplugs and other fixing devices, and can be sawn into correct size when necessary without the need for specialist tools.  Their main advantage, however, over other insulating materials, is their relative rigidity which allows the less-than-average DIY person to create blocks of insulation with a minimum of structural apparatus. As we shall see later, by gluing books together, the main problem for DIY-ers  – erecting a bookshelf which does not collapse under the first hardback copy of Ulysses –  is immediately avoided.

 

These, then, are the main advantages of the "new" product:  ready availability, no manufacturing costs, a section of the public still familiar with the materials used, a work force available for training, an easily worked material, and a simple means of fixing it in place.  But above all, my system restores or enhances the appreciation of books.

 

We must now turn to what are, perhaps, less obvious matters.  I have already alluded to the need for, literally, a "feel" for books.  Here the literary academic community (notoriously, the least practical amongst us) will, for once, have an advantage.  They will already know the way a volume lies in the hand, imparting to its possessor so much information about its quality.  And, of course, good quality paper is the warmest.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 No need, for instance, to convince the literary critic of the Edwardian glow emanating from a Faber edition of The Memoirs of a Fox-hunting Man.  Students will, on the other hand, be more sensitive to weight and bulk; and, here, we have our first educational task – to reverse their instinctive preference for the slim volume in favour of the (more thermally efficient) weighty tome.  (En passant, one observes how the word "volume" has now a greater resonance). 

 

In view of the current state of literacy, it is indeed fortunate that our new material requires less intimate knowledge for its working than the staple DIY medium, wood. In the latter case, experience of maturation, grain, friability, etc. are essential; with books, it is not necessary to introduce the user to equivalent knowledge such as copyright date, ISBN number, structure and style. 

 

I should interject here that my researches have shown no marked difference between, say, a densely printed novel and an anthology of short poems of similar volume even though, in the latter case, the authors regularly fail to cover even half the available area of page with actual writing and, indeed, seem incapable of sustaining their writing as far as the right-hand margins (!).  The unimportance of the actual printed matter in this context is an unexpected bonus for our system: had it been necessary to choose only "great books" or works by "great authors", the advice from Literature Departments would have been hard to come by, being populated so densely with Structuralists (not the DIY sort).  Luckily for our purposes, however, the quality of the book can be empirically tested merely by placing it,  opened and face downward, on the palm of the hand and noting the time taken for the temperature of the paper to come up to that of the supporting hand – at normal library temperature, three seconds or less indicates a book worthy of selection for insulation.

 

It might now have become obvious that the  binding of the book is likely to be of particular importance in this context – on the shelf, the spine not only boldly proclaims its famous author or the inspiring tale but it also is the first rampart against heat transfer.  It is surely not necessary to condescend to my readership with the obvious advice to use only hardbacks and I'm sure any genuine book-lover will have realized that leather is the clear favourite for the binding. Indeed, he might, by now, have begun to speculate that the libraries of our great country houses were furnished by craftsmen who appreciated the thermal value of shelf after shelf of tooled calf bindings.  I hasten to add that I do not wish to advocate a return to the use of animal skins by our suppliers;  however, where existing leather bound volumes are to be found, they should be purchased by insulaters from booksellers' lists immediately, without any consideration of their subject matter whatsoever.

 

Thus far, we have established objective criteria for assessing the quality of books – their binding, their volume/weight ratio, and the thermal characteristics of the paper.  Luckily, once more – and especially for the otherwise redundant literary critic – there are more subjective values to be taken into account.  I refer to the well known fact that a bookcase full of Dickens and Thackeray somehow feels  warmer than an equivalent volume of, say, eighteenth century poetry.  One may equally argue from a sense of period:  Victorian houses, for example, are surely appropriately sheltered from the harsh world outside by complete sets of Tennyson just as an Elizabethan manor house is best "y cladd in mighte armes" of Edmund Spenser. One may go further:  under-floor insulation would seem best enhanced by the gravitas  of Pilgrim's Progress, Paradise Lost, Das Kapital, or even Mein Kampf.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Having established this principle of appropriateness in the choice of our insulation material, it is possible to become more systematic and more specific.  For example, in planning a new house, we can specify to the builder not merely the materials but also the authors  to be used for insulation in different parts of the home. We could, in particular, specify the Christian, Hindu, humanist, etc. character of the under-floor insulation as there is never any shortage of  proselytizing works, often subsidized by pressure groups and therefore cheap.  At this point, I cannot restrain my outrage when I see archive film of Nazis burning books  – think how they could have achieved their purposes, whilst still warming their citizens, if my system had been current. But to present concerns:  it should be specified by architects and planning authorities that the appropriate foundation books be placed flat and in an overlapping pattern upon the waterproof membrane of the concrete raft on which the house is to be built.  Flooring grade chipboard can then be placed (but not yet fixed) directly over the insulation, thereby protecting the books from damage, misuse, and even vandalism by the average building labourer.  The weight of his hob-nailed boots, wheel barrows full of concrete, bricks, etc., upon these boards will also compact the books underneath and so, in a few weeks, allow even more insulation to be laid down. Then the boards can be finally nailed in position – ordinary six inch oval nails are perfectly satisfactory for holding into the books if they have been properly impacted, as described.

 

Coming to the outside walls of our house, we need no longer specify  foam filling for insulation. Instead, books with air spaces behind them should become the standard approach. The procedure is again very simple. The bottom row of books (of uniform height, naturally) is placed in position about two inches away from the inside surface of the wall. Purists may wish to glue these books together and drill air holes in them but I have never found this to be necessary because of my unique approach to the filling of the space between books and wall. For this purpose, less than perfect books or paper-backs should be shredded, soaked in a universal adhesive, and trowelled into the cavity, thus fastening the row of books to the walls, providing a honeycomb of air spaces for additional insulation, accommodating any irregularities in the walls, and obviating the need for plastering.

 

This novel  method (no pun intended) I like to call my "implaster of content". It can be mass produced, from shredded paper of any sort, or can be tailored precisely to the authors specified by the architect.  This latter approach is obviously quite expensive but imagine the pride of ownership, knowing that, behind a fine wall of books, is a shredded infil of similar texts.  My model house would thus be surrounded by  an infill of the inchoate workings of what is so triumphantly achieved on the shelves themselves.  The more philosophically inclined would also be attracted to the idea that their infil – a welter of words – constitutes the very basis by which we appear to know our world.

 

Once the first layer of books is setting,  shelving can be glued to the top of this layer and the above process repeated until the ceiling is reached, thereby creating the bookcase appearance that will be necessary in certain rooms.  Please note the simplicity of the method and its application to older houses, where the infil accommodates bulging walls and, indeed, gives strength to suspect ones.   Incidentally, the shelving should be flush with the spines of the books, or set slightly proud, so that heavy fixtures can be screwed directly into it.  This shelving can also unobtrusively carry electrical wiring which can be led downwards or upwards where necessary by simply prizing two books apart and forcing the cable into the space created.  Nails can also be driven between books where pictures need to be hung, without any ill effect on the

 

 

 

 

 

 

books and, if ovals are used, it will be possible to remove them later without leaving any trace  – thanks to the natural resilience of our material.  Now, even academics (who perhaps have the most time) can approach the renovation of that derelict house with confidence of both success and warmth.

 

Kitchens and bathrooms, however, require careful planning. One wishes, at all costs, to avoid blow-torching through favourite authors in order to pipe in the dishwasher, cooker, etc.  Suffice it to say here that extra deep but hollow shelving, plinths and cornicing can solve most of these problems.  Once the pipes and wires have been accommodated and the kitchen units, etc. fitted, several coats of clear, matt or satinsilk varnish can be applied to the books –  brushed well into the cracks between them to prevent moisture penetrating and to discourage the attack of wood-worm.  You may wish, of course, not to see books in these rooms.  In this case, it is a simple matter to nail plasterboard sheets directly to the books.  Use two inch galvanized clout nails.

 

Toilets call for even more careful treatment and one should consider carefully if an expert ought not to be called in. Apart from the complex layout of the plumbing to be planned for, it will also be advisable to place books loosely on conventional shelving, rather than adopt the permanent fixing described earlier, as research has shown that this is the room where most people are tempted to try to remove the insulation from the walls.  The unrefined mind might see certain very specific advantages of having books which can actually be detached from toilet walls but I am, personally, more concerned here with the problem of identifying the authors who will be suitable for most readers.  One builder might incline towards, say, copies of Rabelais or Swift; on the other hand, a good architect might recommend the thermally efficient Early English Text edition of Piers Plowman.  The first choice might offend certain sensibilities whilst the second might be considered to represent what Lucky Jim would call the Merrie England approach to these fundamental  concerns.  Having drawn attention to the matter, I leave it to the individual householder – though without being able to resist the personal comment that any type of book is preferable to the inverted humility of those who hang their Ph.D. certificates in their toilets.

 

Nor do I wish to be unduly prescriptive about the books selected for other rooms.  However, I would suggest that one ought not to be too solemn.  A Victorian house would be too oppressive for most tastes if entirely insulated from the outside world with row on row of that period's greatest yea-sayers.  Equally, satire, especially in rhyming couplets, might only suit the most avant garde house and, at first sight, would appear to have poor thermal characteristics.  There is scope too for wit  – imagine the spontaneous handclaps of delight at your housewarming  party when your guests notice Portnoy's Complaint next to a DIY manual; or the aperçu  of The Fairie Queene next to Our Lady of the Flowers.  Surprise the reader of your walls with the unexpected  –  Tolkein's Beowulf and the Monsters or C.P. Snow's detective novel.

 

This is the area for greatest originality and imagination and so I leave it to individual choice.  I have also confined myself, essentially, to the world of literature.  This is not only because it is an area which is best known to the widest number of people but, one must confess, the bourgeois spirit of most house-owners is such that they will wish to be surrounded by "good writers".  More traditional literature lecturers, beleaguered in certain institutions where "great writers" are no longer countenanced, will thus find a fresh call for their services and the Directors of their institutions will readily encourage their enterprise activities among builders and architects.  Indeed, new interdisciplinary

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

departments will emerge in which, for example, historians will be engaged to advise buyers on remaindered stock in fields of study which are losing their caché (Chartism but not holocaust studies, for example) and the philosophers and religious studies lecturers will offer valuable advice to the under-floor specialists.

 

And perhaps this is an appropriate time to issue other warnings.  The large DIY stores will quickly see the advantage of insulating blocks made out of composite materials – but are laminations of, for example, T.S. Eliot and Joseph Wambaugh the sort of ambience we want for our children?  Perhaps I am being too élitist:  thermal made blocks from Sun Seeker travel brochures might seem to confer the same warmth on some just as those made up of Elgar and Brahms scores will on others.  Our presently fashionable market-forces criterion suggests that the solution lies in unrestricted competition between different forms of insulation but I would strongly urge the need for clear labeling to identify the authorial ingredients. 

 

I end with two further and important advantages of my system of insulation.  The first concerns export earnings. In our (currently) colder regions, we should not forget that insulation can also keep heat out, as well as in.  Thus the potential for export to hot countries is enormous, especially where books are not readily available.  For example, Australia or the American Mid West would make a suitable test area for British salesmen, whose abilities in foreign languages are notoriously poor. 

 

The other advantage I have kept till last in order that it might linger in the mind, for I firmly believe that its effect will be a major initiative in the field of international relations and general harmony between people.  You may recall the earlier proposition that house foundations are appropriately insulated by philosophical and religious works of a proselytizing sort.  Now, if the whole stock of The Satanic Verses had been bought up by the international Moslem community and offered, at a discounted price, to the building trade, that work which gave so much offence could have been quietly, profitably, and usefully  buried instead of its author.  It is, alas, too late to stem the tide of feminist writings but I have high expectations that this last advantage will be especially noted by the Vatican. At the very least, it offers a solution to the long- p pstanding conflict between liberal permissiveness and the need to preserve the human mind from dangerous ideas.

 

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John Shelton