A library card is the perfect gift. The object of my romantic interest once asked me for one word to describe myself. Bookworm was the obvious choice.
My father was a profilic reader. I can still hear his belly laugh from the sitting room as he read the latest book, a soundtrack to lazy Sundays at home. Out of curiosity, I picked up a book when I was around eight years old. I never got around to putting it down. It got so bad one summer in my early teens that my mother forbid me from reading whilst doing the dishes after a close shave with a knife. I am still that adult, although time, expense and life have slowed me down lately.
It’s not surprising then that a library card is one of my favourite personal gifts to myself. My perfect library? Free, local, hopefully with a respectable collection of African books. I love the smell of libraries. It is the smell of worlds unexplored.
First, a word about our family bookshelf. My father’s bookshelf was random, at best. Like the bookshelves of many self-respecting black households in the 1980’s, ours featured a number of encyclopaedias that I can never remember anyone reading. Ours was a man’s bookshelf. Think westerns, spy thrillers and stories of western intelligence backed African coup d’etats. If I put my mind to it, I bet I could tell you why the Jason Bourne movies detract from Robert Ludlum books, on which they are based. It wasn’t exactly a reading list for a young girl. ‘The Old Man and the Sea’ was confusing. I got lost in the dialogue in ‘All Things Fall Apart’.
Discovering isiZulu books on that bookshelf was a revelation. Finally, I could read about people who could have been my parents, shopkeepers down the road or our insufferable bus driver. Even TV when it came to our village with great fanfare years later, failed to live up to my imagination.
I only discovered my favourite children’s books when I was already an adult. We will need to have a conversation about how ‘Where the Wild Things Are’ is one of the best books ever some time. Not the best book for children. ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS EVER!
When it comes down to it, my love of books would have never have developed if my father had been really strict about age appropriate reading. As it is, he started putting away books he thought were inappropriate. My mother established rules about finishing chores before reading. I have since owned about twelve library cards in as many places that I have lived in as an adult. That first bookshelf has never been matched in my affections.
