Each week I send out a short, fresh reflection from the road – photographs, sketches, and observations from old places that still have something to teach us. What follows is a moment from that ongoing journey.
“Books are a uniquely portable magic.”
Stephen King
FOR BOOKS' SAKE
Warning: If you’re a minimalist, perhaps best not read on…
When it comes to my books I operate a kind of Wary Kondo. A state of avoiding stripping back my books because of the latest trend.
I look at my books as both individual and collective, more organic than dead wood.
My books feel like an extension of me. My library (which is scattered about the house like loose iron filings) sits at the back of my mind like a comfort blanket.
Books contribute to my wellbeing. Book clutter is like fertile leaf mould.
Time-lapse my books, and you might see a murmuration: perching on the shelves, then fluttering to the surface of the desk in my study, some splitting off to settle on my coffee table and others finding their final roost at my bedside.
Some books aren’t read at all. They are totems – markers as to my bookish life – they never get opened – just glimpsed – their spines are enough to trigger a memory or to reinforce a part of my identity.
There’s a filing system, of sorts, but it gets muddied with time – say, after a book gets dislodged during a creative frenzy and then takes up residence under a chair.
Every five years or so, I haul them off the shelves and re-ignite the reference system. The question that’s always at the back of my mind is this: is this the right way to order them?
Should it be thematic, size based, or alphabetical? I never end up finishing the job fully, because I always find a book I thought I’d lost, and fall down a rabbit hole.
My filing system extends to pockets of floor space – little book constellations dotted around and under chairs, or beds about the house. I make imaginary projects up to initiate a book-fest. When I’m working on several projects – each constellation has a different context or meaning. They can sit there for months until their presence snags a memory and I finish the project.
I love seeking out a book and sliding it from between its neighbours, but am deeply anxious when placing a new book – worried that its intended shelf won’t be capacious enough to fit it. I shoe-horn the existing books apart until a gap exists to fit the new one – and then slide it in – allowing its mass to push the others along the shelf. I don’t think I’ve ever had a book that doesn’t fit.
Once in the early years of our relationship I walked into our bedroom to find the pile of books that had been there for months had gone.
"Char", I said - "Where’s my books?"
"I’ve filed them away on the shelves.
" How could you?"
"You’ve not touched them for months."
"I know but but..."
I faltered to explain why.
Only those that have an archive of books can know of the ‘book-slip’. Those joyous moments occur most often when I’ve been researching a project or looking for a reference but, part-way through, I’ve come across another book nearby – a book that I’ve completely forgotten about, or even better, a book that I’ve bought and Charlotte has filed away, before I’ve even read it. The result is always the same – my original quest is abandoned and I sit, mesmerised with the new book for hours – my mind lights up with the possibilities as to where it might take me. Sometimes it has pushed me in directions that I would never have taken – to places unimagined. My life is exalted by books.
Better the tactile pile of books around the winged chair than the bland space it might betray. Better than polished table tops is the teetering mass of books, partitioned like the giants causeway.
And of course, there is the book dust. It gathers within days - coating the book tops and sparse spaces between the books with a thin particulate layer. But, for me, on the dust spectrum - book dust comes only second to fairy dust.
"..but, for me, on the dust spectrum - book dust comes only second to fairy dust."
Does that book spark joy? I couldn’t possibly tell - for the present isn’t the only factor in its impact. Books remain dormant until a chance happening and then the magic happens.
Better keep hold of it.
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Andy Marshall
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