Be Like Bob and Joyce

You can't go wrong

I bought a book from a charity shop the other day called The Oxford Book of Twentieth Century English Verse. First published in 1973, the anthology was compiled by Philip Larkin of This Be The Verse fame. (Obviously Larkin was far from a one-hit wonder, but I’d say it’s fairly uncontroversial to state that particular poem is his most famous.) The copy I bought—at the bargain price of £1.50—is one of the reprints issued in 1981. And it’s great. More poems than you could shake a stick at. There’s Rudyard Kipling’s If, T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land, Wilfred Owen’s Anthem For Doomed Youth, Ted Hughes’ Pike, and hundreds more besides. In among the pages are a handful of the greatest poems ever written.

But perhaps the best, or at least most intriguing, inclusion in the whole book had nothing to do with Larkin. It’s a handwritten inscription on the blank first page that reads, in lovely handwriting:

To Philippa

With love and best wishes

on your 21st birthday

from Bob & Joyce.

How great is that? Who was/is Philippa, and who were/are gift-givers Bob and Joyce? What was the relationship between them? I’d wager it wasn’t an overly intimate one given the use of “to” and “from” rather than “dear” and “love”, as well as the fact that Bob and Joyce opted to gift Philippa a book of poems with a really quite sinister cover on the occasion of her 21st birthday.

But I hope Philippa got something out it. Maybe not on the day of her 21st, but some time, perhaps years, after when she had a leaf through and read some of the brilliant verse within. Even if she didn’t, it doesn’t particularly matter because it’s now in my hands and I get a kick out of it.

Which brings me to my point: always give books as gifts. A book is a perfect gift for any occasion. A quick assessment of the 21 books I’ve written about so far on this blog reveals that 11 were given to me. Bob and Joyce were on to something, even if the poetry anthology market in the early 1980s did not necessarily cater to the young. (It certainly does now.)

And don’t be restricted by your traditional gift-giving occasions (your birthdays, your Christmases, your weddings). Give a book as a thank-you, a congratulations, a sorry. Those flowers you buy from the supermarket on the way to a friend’s for dinner…leave them where they are. Instead, dive into a bookshop, or grab the last book you loved from your bookshelf and hand your hosts that when you walk through their door.

And every single time you give a book, write inside it. Bob and Joyce went pretty traditional with the blank page just inside the cover, and that’s a good place to start with a message. Years, potentially decades, later it will serve as a reminder of the occasion. After you’re done with your inscription (preferably with date included for posterity), if you’re feeling more adventurous, maybe venture further into the book. Write above the chapter headings, or scribble in the margins to highlight favourite passages; a nice surprise awaiting the recipient when they get there. And even if they never get there, even if the book is left unopened, unloved, unused, there’s a pretty high chance it will then end up in a charity shop, and someone might one day write a rambling blog about it.