Genius Fan

We’ve been discussing buying a second bookcase, but where to put it is vexing us. The most obvious place for a new bookcase is the spot currently occupied by the exercise bike (which we use as a clothes drier) bought during Covid lockdown. There’s no direct sunlight and its away from any radiators. It’s next to the living room door through which I think could leak a ‘nanodraft’, which would be good because this room temperature is probably 1° or 2° above the recommended 19°C upper limit suitable for keeping books at their optimum condition. Our current bookcase is in a similar position near the back of the house. It’s a 2m tall, 6-shelver made from oak, that we bought in Edinburgh from an academic couple leaving for a university research position in Latin America. I dropped so many literary references that hopefully they were reassured it was going to a good home. Looking round at the piles of paperbacks on the coffee table and in boxes I remember judging them and feeling superior at my growing collection of hardbacks. My wife and I manhandled it down the shared stairwell like it was a drunk neighbour, occasionally bouncing it against the wall or bannister, then out onto the pavement and into our waiting van.

Back at home, we shuffled the bookcase into its position and I set about placing our books, filling four of its six shelves. My Boswell collection, up top and swelling with volumes about Samuel Johnson, the Enlightenment, Scottish history, the Eighteenth century and some biographies took up two shelves. My wife’s photography books filled the two lowest shelves. I’ve bought more books (they’re all second hand) which filled the middle two shelves. Then, somewhat like the tunnel diggers from The Great Escape, I began replacing her books with mine, one by one, removing individual photography volumes and squirrelled them away in the loft. No remark was ever made about how the Eighteenth century replaced photography, though I do recall her asking where a certain darkroom book was. I found it for her and still we didn’t address the mystery of her disappearing books. Until recently, when she pointed out (for the millionth time) that my books have filled our bookcase, sit in stacks on the top of the bookcase, in stacks on our dining room table and coffee table and beside my bed, in boxes in there spare room, in the toilet and in cupboards. So, now we need a second bookcase. Where are all the postgrads, the academics, the researchers with plans to move from one ivory tower to another?

Notes
As luck would have it, an identical bookcase appeared on Facebook Marketplace. We went to see it, bought it, had it delivered, and so the process above starts again…It’s the circle of Life books.