It's Somewhere in Here
I love books. I love to read. I have many, many books. I have a small house. One would think I put things away neatly, in order to save space. In dreams.
I have felt like re-reading Travels with Charley, by John Steinbeck, lately. I know where I saw it last and what the cover looks like. I bought it second-hand from a bookseller on the internet some years ago. So I go to our room and search in the boxes in the corner where I know I put it. I can't find it. I could have moved it elsewhere since then and have no memory of it. I look around our room. Carefully. Because there are areas of the floor covered in stacks or simple piles of books. I don't have enough bookcases and the cardboard boxes I put the books in end up being used as scratching posts and eventually fall apart.
However, I can't find it. I did find some interesting books that I haven't read in years by Helen MacInnes. They can tide me over. But I seem to have lost Travels with Charley. And, because I have just ordered it from an internet bookseller, I will probably find it soon after the new copy arrives. Murphy's Law works in mysterious ways.
When I moved here I sent a few boxes of books ahead of me. I have since added to those, through physical booksellers and internet booksellers. My house has become a book receptacle. There are books in every room. There are rooms I have to take care where I step so as not to lose my footing and splay myself as another literary mystery. I need one large room with shelving from ceiling to floor along all available wall space to put them all away neatly. As it is, I have an overflowing bookshelf in the study that is shorter than me (barely five feet, a meter and a half), and scattered books on other available surfaces; a small bookshelf about the same height in the downstairs hallway; a smaller bookshelf in the kitchen; a small bookshelf in our bedroom and countless, deteriorating boxes that have long since dripped books onto the floor; two more bookshelves in our daughter's room and stacks of books on that floor. Then there are the incidental books in the bathroom and the upstairs tiny, square hallway. That's without counting the bookshelves and boxes next door in my father's house. I think we are the family with the largest library in the village.
When someone comes to my studio to be helped in English they look at the bookcase and ask if I've read all those books. I answer they should see all the books we have upstairs. Then they look again and say, "But most of these are in English!" Sigh. Perhaps that's the reason why I can help them in English, because I understand English perfectly enough to read in it! I point out that most of our Spanish books are upstairs. My husband prefers to read in bed, and our daughter sometimes recluses herself in her room at night to read. My only problem is when I try to find a particular book I know I have. People who have few books or don't read often might find it strange that a person with as many books as me knows whether or not I have a particular book. It's not so difficult. I tend to remember them, though sometimes the less memorable are remembered when I'm searching for a particular title, such as the Helen MacInnes novels I unearthed.
I just need a bigger house to be able to find them all easily!
I have felt like re-reading Travels with Charley, by John Steinbeck, lately. I know where I saw it last and what the cover looks like. I bought it second-hand from a bookseller on the internet some years ago. So I go to our room and search in the boxes in the corner where I know I put it. I can't find it. I could have moved it elsewhere since then and have no memory of it. I look around our room. Carefully. Because there are areas of the floor covered in stacks or simple piles of books. I don't have enough bookcases and the cardboard boxes I put the books in end up being used as scratching posts and eventually fall apart.
However, I can't find it. I did find some interesting books that I haven't read in years by Helen MacInnes. They can tide me over. But I seem to have lost Travels with Charley. And, because I have just ordered it from an internet bookseller, I will probably find it soon after the new copy arrives. Murphy's Law works in mysterious ways.
When I moved here I sent a few boxes of books ahead of me. I have since added to those, through physical booksellers and internet booksellers. My house has become a book receptacle. There are books in every room. There are rooms I have to take care where I step so as not to lose my footing and splay myself as another literary mystery. I need one large room with shelving from ceiling to floor along all available wall space to put them all away neatly. As it is, I have an overflowing bookshelf in the study that is shorter than me (barely five feet, a meter and a half), and scattered books on other available surfaces; a small bookshelf about the same height in the downstairs hallway; a smaller bookshelf in the kitchen; a small bookshelf in our bedroom and countless, deteriorating boxes that have long since dripped books onto the floor; two more bookshelves in our daughter's room and stacks of books on that floor. Then there are the incidental books in the bathroom and the upstairs tiny, square hallway. That's without counting the bookshelves and boxes next door in my father's house. I think we are the family with the largest library in the village.
When someone comes to my studio to be helped in English they look at the bookcase and ask if I've read all those books. I answer they should see all the books we have upstairs. Then they look again and say, "But most of these are in English!" Sigh. Perhaps that's the reason why I can help them in English, because I understand English perfectly enough to read in it! I point out that most of our Spanish books are upstairs. My husband prefers to read in bed, and our daughter sometimes recluses herself in her room at night to read. My only problem is when I try to find a particular book I know I have. People who have few books or don't read often might find it strange that a person with as many books as me knows whether or not I have a particular book. It's not so difficult. I tend to remember them, though sometimes the less memorable are remembered when I'm searching for a particular title, such as the Helen MacInnes novels I unearthed.
I just need a bigger house to be able to find them all easily!
I no longer keep books and pass them onto the anglo commI should read more in French, but I am lazy. The most frightening day...be without the next book when I finish the one I am reading.
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