“We should read to give our souls a chance to luxuriate.”
Henry Miller
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Tag: The Reading Life
The two ladies who screamed but were actually laughing
They are here in the shop. They are blue, cream, and white, and happy with the weather. Their heads go from side to side, looking at everything fast. They talk at the same time and stack books back on the shelves, placing them exactly as they were before. One lady taps the spines back into soft lines with her fingertip. Lovingly. They call to each other, and their heads go from side to side again as they look at each other’s books, and then back to their own books.
One says, ‘Quick, the lads are here.’ They shuffle and stack harder. One shows the other a picture in a book and they both give quick screams of laughter. Two men come in. The four of them gather tightly. One lady is balancing some books on one hip, ‘I’m getting these, and she thrusts them at one of the men, and he looks down admiringly. He says, ‘Did you leave any for anyone else?’ and the ladies give small screams again, and the man looks happy.
Illustration by Inge Look
Winter and reading and a glass of wine
Under the door of the shop there is a gap, and a thin straw of cold enters quietly, all day long. I have fingerless gloves. Excellent for typing. For looking up any possible gossip about Virginia Woolf that I may have missed. Winter is always bright with possibility because to stay in is acceptable.
One couple came in this afternoon and said, it’s warm in this little place.
He looked like Terry Pratchett, sort of intensely occupied. She looked like Vita Sackville-West, so was probably looking for Virginia Woolf.
They stayed in the room furthest from the warmth for ages, but didn’t seem to notice it. They had, each, a mighty selection when they finally came to the counter and noticed me. I said wisely, ah, the winter reading….
He straightened up in surprise, well, yes of course. He had three Terry Pratchett books.
I said, with a glass of wine….
He straightened up again, this time with joy, well yes of course. We have the place for it at our house, an old place, space for books. The shelves are all bending. Her stuff. He looked at her with an expression of acute happiness.
She presented her Margaret Atwoods and nodded, nursing that private power that comes with Margaret Atwood and husbands like him, and said, it’s winter, time to stay in.
They bobbed back out into the weather, serene, parting the winter into two fields with their own bright path right through the centre of it.
Old House in Stepney, Adelaide (photography by me)
Virginia Woolf
“So fine was the morning except for a streak of wind here and there that the sea and sky looked all one fabric, as if sails were stuck high up in the sky, or the clouds had dropped down into the sea.”
Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse
The raspberry saddle
There are three of them here in the shop, a family, an adult daughter and her parents and the father is silent and examines the door locks. The mother looks at the books, closely, with her eyes half shut. The daughter carries books around. The daughter tells me about a copy of Susan Cooper’s The Dark is Rising that she had once, the glue let go, it unglued itself, the binding fell apart. She said it was her mother’s fault for reading it aloud so much.
Her mother said, what was the accusation? And the daughter said, without looking up, you know…
The mother leaned back and looked into the past with pleasure. She said yes, it was our fault, our generation did it, read like that. I remember. Remember Lord of the Rings? And you used to be into the unicorns.
I’m not into unicorns, I never was.
You used to be.
I never was.
Then the father said: yes you was.
The daughter looked at me and said, see, I had a mum who read to me like anything.
The mother thought about this with her eyes kind of half shut and then said, thanks babe!
After they left, they stood in the alcove outside the door for a long time. The daughter was telling them a story about a unicorn, she said it had a raspberry saddle, she said, do you remember it mum, do you remember that, and the parents were nodding and nodding and trying to remember it.
Artwork by Emma Ersek
The Couple Who Came in Together
This couple came in, came in very together and walked around the shop together and nodded over the books together. They hardly said anything.
Sometimes I heard them murmuring and laughing about something but only briefly. They were in the shop for ages, spending time in all the sections, reading even the children’s books silently and smiling over them. They spent a long time with a book by Jorge Borges called The Book of Sand. They talked and talked about that one. When they got to the science fiction they did not handle any of the books. They stood and looked up and down the titles, sometimes they said something to each other but they did not pull out a single book from there.
They did not buy any books at all but when they left they thanked me for having a bookshop.
Sculpture ‘The Couple’ by Kieta Nuij
Young Man Reading
The young man came in here during the afternoon, the last of April, the last of the summer warmth and sat in the wicker chair to wait for his mother who needed some more of Georgette Heyer. He glanced around the place, he was not too interested in the place, he was serene enough, happy to wait for her. Later I noticed him reading, it was a worn paperback copy of The Magic Barrel by Bernard Malamud. I wonder why he chose it. He read for more than half an hour and then his mother finished with Georgette and came to the counter with nothing at all and he stood up and carried the book over and tapped the cover and paid me for it.
He said, “good one,” and then they left, out of the door and gone.
Young Man Reading by Ignis Bednarik
A Royal One
Thelma said she can’t take to Charles Dickens.
David said he can’t find anything in Wilbur Smith.
Ursula said there’s no point in reading Somerset Maugham.
I read a comment describing the pointlessness of reading Great Expectations, as there was no plot.
Tyson said that he lost a few months trying to read Atlas Shrugged, time that he never got back again.
I was told that Middlemarch was not worth finishing and that Dante, even Jesus Christ himself would not read that Inferno shit.
I like to give everything a go. And I like to be free to put anything aside if necessary. I am reading Great Expectations, an unexpected choice and a royal one. It has taken me a long time to get to Charles Dickens and this book, Great Expectations, which I am reading slowly, is proving to be the most engaging appeal to the senses and the most tantalizing description of everybody I don’t like. And the most accurately hammered out observations of what we do and why! I am anxious not to reach the end too quickly; it is an experience that is causing me great joy and consternation….Miss Havisham, the awful and chosen decay…the astounding way the story has been all put together.
Thelma, at the shop today, said that she can’t take to Charles Dickens, never has been able to. She had in her hand Graham Green and Hans Christian Anderson and Hilary Mantel and she was also looking for Colin Thiele. And she also had for me a Christmas gift, she had bought brown paper and painted it herself, in bright purple to match me, she said. She has also painted some string bright gold and made a card with a silver and gold angel on a deep purple background of night sky and stars. She has written on the card in gold. It is an unexpected gift and a royal one.
I am instructed not to open it until Christmas.
Artwork by Pawel Kuczynski
Boooom!
There is a child here in the shop, unhappy because there are no Star Wars books left for him. But his sister has found The Diary of a Wimpy Kid, the orange one, and he is also uncomfortable with her success. He says that he has read all of those books anyway.
She says: Booooom!
She has found The Search for Wondla. He says: oh that! He needs to be dismissive. She answers: Oh Booooom!
Now she has two books and he has none. He asks me for I Am Number Four, I understand the urgency, but I don’t have it. He looks quickly at his sister but she is absorbed, kneeling on the floor with A Day in The Life of a Roman Child…he walks over and says: I know that book.
She doesn’t answer.
He is scanning the shelves and table, quickly, needing a discovery.
On the windowsill, he finds The Hobbit, facing outward, easily missed.
He lifts it off the windowsill and onto himself, against his chest, not breathing, holding it as children will when they find something of diabolical value. It is a paperback edition, a large one in poor condition, illustrated, the dragon on the front stirring in a nest of boiling jewels.
His sister has noted his silence and gazes over at him suddenly. He says: I’m getting this. He has one shoulder raised against her, protecting the dragon.
Their mother returns, she hurries them along, pleased that they have chosen, pleased with her own books, not seeing theirs, missing the acute joy, encouraging their libraries as she also builds her own.
The little girl who said no…
There is a little girl here at the shop, hoping that her books – The Cat Warrior series – have arrived, but they have not.
She is impassive, stern,
I know she is a formidable reader, knowing exactly where she is reading and why. She will not be lured to something else while she waits. To every suggestion, she says: no.
I admire everything about her.
She is confident; she will not be swayed by any cheerful and generous hope. She is slightly contemptuous of my offerings.
I admire everything about her.
She can’t believe her books have not arrived, it has been ten days and this is what I said – ten days.
She eyes my benevolence and she will not agree.
I admire everything about her.
Finally she does look elsewhere; she does it for her mother and for me. It is her doing it for us, not for herself. But it is not a giving in, she remains dignified and generous.
She chooses The Maplin Bird by K M Peyton. This is an historical novel, brilliant, but not an easy read for a ten year old. It is one of my favourite books.
I tell her I am impressed. She looks at me, entirely unimpressed.
I admire everything about her. When she leaves she is hugging the book to her chest and she begins reading before she is in the car, on the footpath, not even remembering to open the car door.
I admire everything about her.
The Book Keeper Book Shop 