On the gravity of books

I have quite a lot of books. At a guess, probably more than 500, but fewer than 1,000. It’s a small number by Umberto Eco’s standards, who is purported to have accumulated a personal library of over 30,000 books. And its a piddly number when taken in the context of the British Library, which has over 13.5 million books. Nevertheless, I would still say that it’s quite a lot of books.

It’s certainly a lot of books when the question of moving about with them is considered. In the last few years, I’ve been drawn to a fairly peripatetic kind of lifestyle. I lived in a van in the South West of England for a while, and I’ve spent months at a time travelling in Europe, often walking long distances with all of my stuff on my back.

I like books. They are what I do my best thinking with, in many ways. And when I am travelling, I would say that not having access to my books is one of my greatest frustrations. I feel as if I’m cut off from the source of much of my intelligence.

I’m currently wrestling with the question of where could be a good home for my books. Somewhere they could live; somewhere they would be read and appreciated and cared for by others; somewhere that I could visit and stay from time to time, in between stints wandering abroad.

I think that, with this question settled, I would feel much freer in my travelling, knowing that my books were at home somewhere that maybe I could also feel at home.