Visiting someone’s home and inspecting the bookshelves
As a child, the houses I frequented had very few books on display. Most, including my home, had one or two shelves’ worth, usually part of a dining-room cabinet and behind glass, as if they were to be seen and not read. Scattered in no particular order would be an abridged encyclopaedia, a bible, a dictionary, a couple of Jilly Cooper novels, some hardback photobooks about war, a set of unread plainly-bound volumes received as a gift, titles about diets and canals pertaining to midlife crises and short-lived hobbies, a tired atlas and a large annual tying in with a BBC television series.
The people who owned these shelves – my parents and my friends’ parents – were born just after World War Two. When they read, books were not bought, but borrowed. Libraries were necessary and useful, whereas living-rooms were for porcelain ornaments and the telly, and not showing off. Perhaps it is why in adulthood I am fixated with bounteous shelves, and indeed with building up my own collection – we never had bookshelves, now we must have two rooms containing them. They are my pampered generation’s version of indoor toilets. Or, perhaps I am just nosey.
I know that I am not alone, that there are, right now, people scanning others’ bookshelves and getting to know their owners in a way conversation would not allow. These shelves are someone’s biography that, try as you might to avoid it, reveal covers by which they can be judged. This isn’t entirely unfair or sinister: what better way to decide if a new lover is worth wasting time on, or to find something in common with your hosts when forced into a social occasion by your more affable partner? It is also possible that those hosts want you to look at their shelves – a book collection can be an ostentatious display of intelligence and worldliness.
Arrival in a house or a flat kindles a desire to secure time alone with the bookshelves. The offer of a drink, preferably a slightly complicated one, is accepted, a distraction for your ferreting. Should a host be cooking, all is golden and hours are plenty. By the time he or she is washing up, a character profile has been shaped.
Either way, there will be a rushed early scan of all shelves as you excitedly inhale the books facing you like a cat in a fish and chip shop, and pull loose two or three titles in quick succession. You might find yourself flooded with book envy, or sighing longingly at an alphabetically-organised collection of near perfection or a vast swathe of orange Penguin Classics. If there are at least half-a-dozen volumes that you too own, the omens for friendship or more are good.
A host re-enters the room to find your face illuminated having observed one such book-in-common. That is the real joy, not the prying, the searching for clues or the judging. You have found a fellow passenger and there are many worlds inside this one that you can visit together without even leaving the sofa. Best of all, when the evening’s exit does come, your new friend may insist upon lending you a book or two that he or she is sure you’ll love. If ever returned at all – ‘It is only a fool who lends a book, and a greater fool who returns it’ goes the Arabic saying – it will probably not be for a long while. When reacquainted, though, an unexpected delight is passed back to the owner.