We had just been let off by the taxi at the corner of the
block in the Prezelauer district of Berlin where my friend Elfriede lives.
Dragging our 20-kilo loads along, my daughter and I trudge along the street
toward her house. I have my eyes on the sidewalk and almost bump into a tree
trunk—and look up to find it’s not. In the roughly carved recesses of what was
once a tree, are bookshelves, the books inside protected by curved glass that
could be opened with a push. No locks and no latches. The books look well
thumbed and put there by caring hands, not just discarded after a quick read.
Later, Elfriede explains it to us. People in the neighbourhood drop off books
they have read and would like to share.
Others pick them up, or just leaf through them while sitting at the café
next door, sometimes leaving another book in exchange.
Charming idea.
A lovely woman I meet at dinner later in the week tells me that if
she finishes a book while she’s on the Underground (she lives in London), she
leaves it on the train for someone to pick up and read. If she still has some
way to go before her stop, she moves to another spot and watches to see if
someone will pick it up. “It feels good to share something you’ve read with
someone else, even a complete stranger,” she says. Sometimes, of course, a person will look at the book and put it back down. "It's interesting to see what kind of person will actually take it to read," she adds.
And another friend talks about books left behind at the
women’s hostel she visits, books residents are done reading and have no wish to
pack into their transcontinental luggage. She’s often found great reads among
these discarded collections, and has replenished the lot with her own
once-read books. So the shelves in the hostel are a constant surprise—the books
do a merry go round, and each time she passes the shelf she finds something new
and interesting.
I, on the other hand, find it awfully difficult to part with
books. I hoard them. The stories they hold within their covers are themselves
embedded within stories of my life and relationships. Gifts from friends.
Memories of moods and conversations. Contexts of giving and taking. The jackets
often hold dedications that I would hate to discard.
And so my bookshelves groan under the weight of my
acquisitions, usually gaining more pounds than they lose (I do keep losing
books to defaulting borrowers from time to time). I love sharing my books with
other avid readers, but I do want my books back. I find comfort in my very own
hardback version of One Hundred Years of Solitude, or my disintegrating copy of
The Far Pavillions that my father bought for me on my 16th birthday
from India Book House on Kingsway (a shop that no longer exists, on a street
that is known by another name now).
I must say, though, that the thought of passing on good books
has its appeal. To know that a story that one has enjoyed is being experienced
by someone else, can be comforting. While I would certainly not be able to part
with every single book on my shelves, there are some I would be happy to leave in
the Book Tree, and maybe even on the subway…and it actually might be a thrill
to know that someone has picked it up, smiled at lines that you’ve enjoyed, and
cried at parts that have choked you up, and lived through the story in their
own ways.
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