LINDA GRANT - I MURDERED MY LIBRARY

Synopsis/blurb……

What happens when you begin to build a library in childhood and then find you have too many books? From a small collection held together by a pair of plaster of Paris horse-head bookends to books piled on stairs, and in front of each other on shelves, books cease to furnish a room and begin to overwhelm it. At the end of 2013, novelist Linda Grant moved from a rambling maisonette over four floors to a two bedroom flat with a tiny corridor-shaped study. The trauma of getting rid of thousands of books raises the question of what purpose personal libraries serve in contemporary life and the seductive lure of the Kindle. Both a memoir of a lifetime of reading and an insight into how interior décor has banished the bookcase, her account of the emotional struggle of her relationship with books asks questions about the way we live today. 

Linda Grant is an award-winning novelist and non-fiction writer. Her novel WHEN I LIVED IN MODERN TIMES won the Orange Prize for Fiction in 2000 and THE CLOTHES ON THEIR BACKS was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2008 and won the South Bank Show Award. Her latest novel, UPSTAIRS AT THE PARTY, will be published in July 2014. She lives in London with fewer books than she used to.

A short kindle read that won’t be adding to my storage difficulties! It’s always interesting for me to see how other bookaholics deal both physically and emotionally with the issues that our shared passion causes.

Unashamedly I do have an emotional attachment to my collection-cum-library, probably more as a collective entity, as opposed to any individual love for a random book that might be plucked in isolation from a shelf.  

I didn’t have the all same issues as the author insofar as all my books have been acquired in adulthood after leaving my parental home, but I have bonded with my books in the past 30 years plus.

For many years, I was of the read them and keep them mind-set but practicalities did overcome the wrench of initially being able to let go of, not just books, but friends. I felt a sense of loss when releasing that first batch of books by Ellroy, Parker, Burke, Pelecanos, Bruen, Guthrie, Smith and Gischler, to mention a few.

Subsequently I have found it much easier to part with books I have just read, mainly because I have survived the trauma of that initial mass bereavement. I suppose losing them one at a time, is similar to shedding flakes of skin daily – it’s unnoticeable and not a threat to my overall well-being.    

Other random personal reading peculiarities I have are……..

I don’t like getting rid of books I have bought but not read, even though some of my books have me scratching my head and thinking what did I ever see in that? My taste has evolved obviously over the past 25 years.

I have issues with never not finishing books, irrespective of how much I have disliked something. Maybe I’m an eternal optimist and think something will drastically improve, or maybe I think I’m too stooopid to comprehend the author’s intent and just maybe if I continue, the sackcloth will fall from my eyes – perhaps on the very next page and enlightenment will vanquish the darkness and the penny will drop. And I’ll be a much richer person, basking in my new found knowledge, where previously there was only ignorance.

Part of never not finishing, could be Catholic guilt at “waste”, but also a big chunk of it is sheer cussedness. If I don’t finish it, the author has beaten me and is somehow laughing at me. Well that ain’t happening, Mr Writer – go ahead and do your very worst, you ain’t beating me! See me sucker – still reading your puerile crap – who’s laughing now? (Err, probably, still him but that’s part of my genetic make-up I suppose.)

Back to the author’s offering then, which is hard to review without actually transferring her thoughts and scenarios to my own outlook. Maybe that’s the point.

She had a favourite bookshop in childhood. My two were in adulthood - the independent seller, Goodwins in Leighton Buzzard and a couple of times a year, a trip to Murder One on the Charing Cross Road in London – source of some amazing US imported crime fiction pre-internet and Amazon days. Both of these are long gone, though I’m not quite sure if Murder One limps on in another guise at another location. She rues the absence of a decent bookshop in her locale, so do I; though in some immeasurable way I have surely contributed to their demise in pursuit of more books for my money. Why buy a new book for a tenner, when I can buy 3 second hand books for the same money?

Don't do it Linda! Aaargh, too late!

She double stacked her books on shelves when space was tight. I did the same, then triple stacked if the width of the shelf allowed it. I also had to abandon author shelf chronology in an attempt to squeeze more books on the shelves, by reordering by size. I even removed my clothes from my pine wardrobe and filled it with books instead – 4 rows across and 4 rows deep! I kept the clothes elsewhere, but the underlying theme was I’d rather have a book than a shirt!

That last point still resonates, but when the book has been digested I can move it on now without remorse.

Overall – a 4 from 5. 

I don’t think she had to murder her library and condemn herself to looking at empty shelves, there had to be a compromise solution – so I’m down-grading her score! In the past few years, my collection has moved to the attic, as my daughter took over my study; that was almost as hard as losing 600-odd books in one go, but the library is still intact albeit not as instantly accessible.

Acquired recently on Amazon UK for Kindle.

Thanks to Moira at Clothes in Books for the recommendation.