The calm a room of books brings
Rooms full of books are not entered in a rush. The threshold of a library, pub lounge, bookshop or room in a house is breached with calm reverence, as in a place of worship. Once crossed, the book lover’s pulse quickens. He or she pauses and gazes around to find they are encircled by books, before the heart slacks to the quarter peals of a village church bell. A deep and irresistible calm has arrived.
Senses are heightened. It feels as if you can hear the carpet swoosh beneath your feet, competing with pages being slid across one another and turned with a rip, a wave hissing in and smashing against the harbour wall. The wet-wood bookish scent burrows into your nose. It could be an offensive smell, and yet, because it is caused by a book’s ingredients and because it is infusing a room such as this, it serves to draw you further towards tranquillity. The walls are muffled by their contents, adding to a sensation of protection, haven and retreat. No matter how many games of Cluedo you have played, nor the number of murder mysteries you have read, it feels like nothing bad could possibly happen in a room full of books.
Rather quickly for a space in which time seems denser, you lose yourself in the spines. Ageing hardbacks are most adept at drawing in this welcome displacement. Their coarse, scaly covers in steadfast greens, blues and maroons feel like the backdrop for a dream, equally alluring whether forgotten Dickens titles or botanical surveys. Fingers brush and knead them, as if magic can be dabbed and pocketed, and titles are dutifully taken down, pondered and then restored.
What sweet serenity to be encompassed by no decoration other than the words writers toiled over, to be barricaded among these entrancing objects, each with its own characters, hopes and dreams. Should the rest of the world implode, you would be just fine in this Elysian bunker.