Books on my walls..

There is a box of books under my bed. The two long shelves above my bed are already stacked so high that I am afraid they won't hold and books will tumble on me while I sleep. It wouldn't be the worst way to be woken though. My studies involve buying lots of books, reading sparknotes and pretending that I understand the intricate story lines and subtext, so every year I acquire a couple more. Also, every time we go to the hospice or walk by a second hand book store, I walk out with a stack of books.

I have two favourite books. The one I even bought twice : once in an English book store in Berlin, and then, thinking that I would never get it back after having lent it to a friend, I bought it again at Shakespeare & Co. in Paris. The book was looking at me, and my friend Adam said that it was fate: I had lost the book but found it again. I had to buy it. Well, a few weeks later I was back in SA and my book-borrowing friend was moving to the Netherlands, so I got it back. Now I have two copies of Joseph Heller's God Knows, but I don't think I'll ever part with either copy.

A quick word about Shakespeare & Co. : it is at the same time the greatest book store and the most pretentious. It is located on the left bank of the Seine and manages to sell a great number of great books in a tiny space. Upstairs there is a little corner with an old typewriter in between all the children's books, and in the next room there are benches against the wall and old, valuable-looking books. My memory might fail me or they might have changed, because I was last there in 2009. The environment is great, but the employees seem to be hipster-coolkid-American-students who look condescendingly at every purchase you make. It was probably just a long day and I am certainly not cool enough, but I thought the people there were ruining  the atmosphere a bit.

Back to my books. One day, I would like to have an entire room dedicated to them, with one of those rolling ladders and comfortable sofas and it should smell like happiness.

Here are some cool home libraries I found on shelterness:

or this one is quite cool as well: 

from here