Morning all on this lovely sunny day.
Last night I was reading a volume of collected essays by Geoff Dyer (my favourite writer by a stretch) called Anglo-English Attitudes and I came across an essay called 'Unpacking my Library' (title borrowed from Walter Benjamin's essay of the same name).
Here is an extract which I just wanted to share. I am not necessarily arguing the truth of the sentiment but it did make me smile.
"I can't go for more than a few moments without sliding back my chair and gazing with massive self-love at my library. Needless to say, I have no impulse to read. Books are to be arranged and classified, shuffled around. At the very most I want to take a volume from the shelves, consult it, perhaps smell it, and replace it, carefully. Sometime in the future I may want to add a few incremental volumes but, for the moment, I just want to sit here, gazing at my life. For that's what it is, this library; it's not just the story of my life, it is my life"
- Jeremy Clarke
Comments