Book Life
“Book collecting is an obsession, an occupation, a disease, an addiction, a fascination, an absurdity, a fate. It is not a hobby. Those who do it must do it.” Jeanette Winterson
KATY
I am hoping to pull on something I enjoy and start a collection of posts on books & reading. In this first one I am going to talk about my ongoing love of books and then, at the end, share the ones that have stuck with me and are perennial favourites. Please let me know if you have any book or reading post requests going forward.
Reading has - and I think always will be - a salve for me. I have used books to escape, explore and find things. During this odd isolation I have found myself transported from my office to the midst of our library (which, in the way London flats demand, is also my kitchen/sitting room/dining room/everything room). As I sit at my desk I look out onto a life well read. I can’t lay claim to all of the books here because Ryan is equally enamored by the written word, however, a decent chunk of them are mine.
Over the coming weeks I know I will fall into a new pattern of reading. In normal times I will read on the bus going to work, read at lunch with my Pret coffee, read at home before company arrives, read before bed & if I can I will read on the sofa during the evening. I have a more than strong preference for hard copies of books. I hoard & return to my books like they are recipes in a well thumbed family cook book. I am not someone who minds the turning down of corners. I will - though in truth not very often - scribble on the pages of a book I am reading. If, and you’re allowed to, you were to take a book from my shelves you are likely to find something between the pages. This is because I like the idea that the book I am reading is somehow connected to a time & place. I have, for example, books that I have bought in New York with Metrocards safely deposited among chapters. In my opinion books are living things with histories and identities. There is something obvious and pervasive in the rule forbidding books from being thrown away or destroyed.
When I heard they might be shutting the city down one of my first thoughts was that I needed to do a final book order. I am not overly proud to admit that I often use Amazon to buy books. It doesn’t much soften the blow that I also often shop at a lot of small sized bookshops - my current favourites are The Riverside Bookshop, The Word Bookshop, & Nomad Books. However, the truth is I will go into any place with books, this includes all charity shops (often I find that the poetry sections are better than normal bookshops), Waterstones (the Gower Street one is quite something) and local libraries. In a world that is (apparently) very broken and disregarding of good things I’d note that I’ve wandered into an awful lot of nice bookshops across my travels.
It is difficult - and mildly pointless - to suggest that I have favourite or most loved books. In truth the books that I don’t love I put down so as to move onto something I will love. The books that I keep are always 4 to 5 out of 5 stars. I am hopeless at persevering with books I’m not enjoying. In contrast if I find an author I enjoy I will often quickly buy more of their titles (Joan Didion). In addition, I have a tendency to want my books to communicate with each other. What this means - and it’s not actually terribly imaginative or bookish - is I read in themes and enjoy the idea that books carry on talking when I’m not looking.
Below is a selection of books that - having studied my shelves - I think may be stand out long term loves.
Gratitude - Oliver Sacks
The Great Railway Bazaar - Paul Theroux
The Cost of Living - Deborah Levy
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy - John Le Carre
The Language of Kindess - Christie Watson
Engleby - Sebastian Faulks
Lanny - Max Porter
The White Album - Joan Didion
The Shipping News - Annie Proulx
In Between The Sheets - Ian McEwan
The Argonauts - Maggie Nelson
The Flaneur - Edmund White
Why I Write - George Orwell
The Time Machine - H G Wells
A Month in the Country - J L Carr
And how about you guys? What are the books that have stayed with you? Please share any brilliant bookshops - I’d love to hear any book related stories.
Photo credits & rights to Katy Cakebread