What's your business here, Elijah?

Is it not possible that the ideal box size for packing books is not, as one might expect, that size sported by boxes commonly employed by book distributors and, presumably, found in dumpsters near bookstores, but rather that sported by the boxes in which one finds 32 five-ounce packages of Starbucks coffee, viz., exterior dimensions "something like" 14"-11.5"-9.5", length by width by height? At least for books of a certain size, I contend that it is so, even though I don't have any of the former kind of boxes with me at the moment—it simply must be so, for how could book-shippers possibly employ the optimal size of boxes? Furthermore, is it not possibly the case that my insistence on packing books in such a way that no authors are split up between boxes, and that the books be packed thematically (this extends to packing novels I have read before novels I haven't, though the authorial constriction does not extend to ensuring that T.F. and John Cowper Powys go in the same box—after all, what if they didn't like each other?) does more damage to my book-packing efficency, both space- and time-wise, than does the frustrating variance in the physical dimensions of the books themsleves?  I think the answer to that one pretty much has to be "no".

Comments

[ogged]

insistence on packing books in such a way that no authors are split up between boxes

Is there a reason for this?

[ben wolfson]

Well, obviously, since that's the way I shelve them, that's the way they should be packed. Plus it will make everything so much easier at the other end.

Shouldn't you be writing a precis?

[ogged]

I haven't forgotten, not to worry.

[ben wolfson]

Are you sure you haven't forgotten?