Inspired by an article in the FT about how authors collect books, I want to write about how I collect books and what I have in the flat right now.
My first book was an Enid Blyton picture book “The bad Cockyolly bird” which I won for storytelling when I was 7. I still have this book – intact and right where I can reach to it. Perhaps I should seal it in an air-tight bag and protect it. But this book kick-started my habit of owning books.
Until this book, I didn’t have a book of my own. I hadn’t visited the school library and foreign editions of English books weren’t available cheap back then in India. I am not sure they are cheap even today.
Slowly I built my collection by winning books in competitions and I had 4 in another 4 years. Reading became an obsession and an escape and I joined a private lending library far from our house – this was a reward from my mother for devouring English books.
I am moving flats now and I boxed up all my books first. I have 16 boxes full of books and this is after giving away most of my popular fiction and things I will never read. I have another box unpacked – that contains my signed books, by big names like Jane Yolen. I have another box with 100 books that I want to give away for the charity Roomto Read. So I can buy the latest ones.
Since I discovered Kindle for Android, I have been downloading more books into my tablet. But those are my adult reading – literary fiction, fiction, non-fiction, reference books, writing books. If it is a picture book or a chapter book for young readers, I’d rather buy the book, feel it, touch it, and read it over and over again.
I am hoping that when I move to my new flat, I will have enough space for all my books and I can organise them, sort them, catalogue them. But I know that will last less than a month. Then I will start leaving books on the coffee-table, by the bed, on the computer table, on top of the microwave oven and on every window-sill.
I will have books in the work bag, in the weekend bag and scattered on the sofa.
I might have to rent a storage space, put bookshelves there, arrange my books, setup a sofa and go there to read. But the trouble is – reading is part of living. I can’t segregate it and put it away nicely in a rented storage space.
How much space do you allocate for your books? Can you afford it in a city like London, where space is premium?
www.chitrasoundar.com
I’ve been quietly requisitioning my childhood books from my mother’s house in manila – quietly because my bookworm brother and I shared a love for the same books. So far he hasn’t noticed – but my house is filling up. It’s got me thinking of acquiring a Kindle for Christmas – that way, i can test drive a book before buying the hard copy! if I love a book, I hunt down the hardback! Still searching for a hardback White Darkness by Geraldine McCaughrean (US edition) – though I’ve already got three copies of the paperback.
So I am not alone. Someone should tell my family, it is normal.
I think the first book I owned was called The Three Little Kittens, my first “absolutely favourite” book, which I received as a gift, was Linnets and Valerians by Elizabeth Goudge – I still have it, it’s so well read the pages feel like velvet.
As for room for books, the only rooms in my house that don’t have books are the lounge and kitchen. All the other rooms have books literally falling off shelves. I am not looking forward to packing up and moving house. One of the reasons why I am increasingly buying ebooks!
Lovely post Chitra,
I can’t remember the first book I owned but I do still have the three volume hard back edition of Lord of the Rings which I got for Christmas about 35 years ago. No one’s allowed to read it though – Abe Books are asking close on £1000 for it!
We’ve just moved house and so I feel your pain. And in answer to your how many shelves question – it’s 52 not including the bookcases in the kids’ rooms!
Ouch!
Jeannette