The Voyages I’ve Traveled With My Book Weight

by admin | June 20, 2025 2:48 am

When reading a book at night, I invariably sit at my desk, Spotify playing through my earbuds, the Mac monitors glowing in front of me. The book lies flat on the desk, which I built out of black walnut and red oak 15 years ago. I am mighty fond of that desk.

Propping the book open is an embossed leather book weight. It is about 9 inches long with a pair of lead weights entombed inside on either end. It will keep open the heftiest tome in which I am engrossed. The velvet backing has come loose on part of it. I am working up to gluing it back together. One doesn’t approach such tasks quickly. Besides, the list of Things to Do at Three Geese Farm is always long, so gluing a book weight that still works just fine is far down that list.

I bought the book weight online from Levenger in 2001. The company specializes in pricy office and home study accessories. They still sell book weights, but not as heavy as the one I bought at the dawn of this century. Mine likely will outlast me.

Oh, the books that have stayed cracked open as I traveled on their voyages! A few weeks’ worth of nights were spent in 2002 reading Master of the Senate by Robert A. Caro. I consider him one of the finest biographers alive. That was Volume 3 of what purportedly will be a five-volume series. I read the first volume in 1982, long before one could order a book weight online, let alone an actual book. (I did subscribe for years to both the History Book Club and the Book-of-the-Month Club and eagerly awaited the arrival of my selections.)

Ten years after reading Mast[1]er of the Senate, I read the fourth volume, The Passage of Power. I have been waiting patiently since 2012 for the fifth and final volume. Caro turns 90 in October. I am no spring chicken myself. Here’s hoping for good health for both of us. I sure would like to read that final volume while both of us are on this side of that mortal coil.

I am quite fond of trilogies and series. Canadian mystery writer Louise Penney, by my count, has published 20 books in the Gamache series, all of which I devoured once introduced to her by my Beautiful Mystery Companion. I have pre-ordered the 21^st coming this fall.

Considerably slower going, but no less enthralling, was the Wolf Hall trilogy by the late Hilary Mantel. This historical fiction masterpiece centers on the machinations of Thomas Cromwell and his role as principal counselor to the many-married Henry VIII, who eventually had him beheaded.

Both have been turned into television series that are well done, but, as usual, fall far short of the books that inspired them. However, another fine novelistic collection turned into a pretty fine television series is the Slow Horses collection by Mick Herron, a British suspense writer. The books are fast, entertaining reads, and 10 of them are stacked on my shelves. The television series, by the same name, is excellent. Gary Oldham plays Jackson Lamb, the slovenly but brilliant head of a bunch of MI5 rejects, exiled to the Slough House, which becomes known as Slow Horses. His character is spot-on with the book’s character. I recommend it, unless you object to men vocally farting. He does that a lot.

I am glad this book weight can’t tattle. The stories it would tell, of nights spent reading with a tumbler of whatever adult beverage I favored at the time. All the moves, job changes, breakups, and new relationships, beloved pets come and gone, nights spent in worry about our nation, trying to stay focused on the book. Worried about whatever writing project I had embarked upon.

After nearly 25 years, my book weight retains its lovely leather smell, the smell of a saddle. I pick it up often while reading and take a whiff. It is fainter but still there. I hope it always will be.

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