from a book worm’s perspective

One of the first things I noticed upon our relocation to Western Europe years ago, was the astonishing fact that many local people had no idea who is Amber or Scarlet O’Hara, who is P.G. Woodehouse, what does Shogun mean or what does Erich von Däniken write about. From my book worm’s perspective this was totally unacceptable and instantly sent me on a book saving quest.

At first I thought it’s just me who accidentally comes across fellows not very fond of reading but then the kids started school and it quickly became clear that literature as I knew it neither exists, nor is academically taught.

 

Sweating with despair I started upturning book stores. It’s just impossible, I thought, for the World’s Classics or Children’s Classics to be not readily available in German. Yet there I was, running from one air-conditioned bookery to another, only to discover that majority of the glossy covers are mostly of books written in the past decade. The ceiling-high shelves were overflowing with multivolume and undoubtedly amusing collections like “Diaries of a Wimpy Kid” or “Magic Tree” but there were just a few, if any books by Mark Twain, Astrid Lindgren, Erich From or Gianni Rodari. I found some online eventually, but it was still disappointing that they were nowhere to see, touch, smell and buy in the real world. 

A couple of months later I abandoned the 3D book stores and switched to more reliable sources. Armed with a long list of authors, I spent hours browsing through antiquarian online shops and second hand book sellers. I didn’t stop until I bought them out. We now own a gigantic trilingual home library which our grandchildren will have the privilege to inherit. And hopefully to read.

Then we moved to Australia where book diversity and availability were much better but still nothing short of scarce in comparison with my Slavic memories. Our children had just entered teen age and it was time for them to meet Robinson Crusoe, Sherlock Holmes, Winnetou and Sheherezade, so we went on a book hunt. Not many things in life are more pleasurable than wooden bookshelves, vintage leather chairs and old paper aroma. Many books left those shelves for an honourable place at our home that day but we couldn’t find wonderful volumes like “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” or “Nobody’s Boy”.

To my greatest dismay, a young book seller in Sydney didn’t even recognise Agatha Christie’s name. He told me they don’t sell Agatha Christie probably because she’d been in lower demand. Agatha Christie, who is listed in The Guinness Book of World Records with her roughly 2 billion sold copies and who is the second best-selling thing ever after the Bible…

I contemplated on this new reality and realised that for many years I hadn’t been aware of how glorious education was in Eastern Europe during the eighties. Values like literacy, knowledge and culture were a huge part of my childhood and as long as it depends on me, our children and grandchildren will follow the same tradition. They will grow up with encyclopaedias, science and art; and the magical world of Muff, Halfshoe and Mossbeard, Poirot, Numi and Nicki, Dr. Dolittle and Romeo and Juliet.

Thinking of books now, I don’t even know how I would’ve survived without them. Books not only tell stories; they can console, elevate and teach. On a biochemical level our brain does not differentiate between what we imagine and what we experience so a story of love triggers the same biochemicals in the body as if we are really in love. While we read, our imagination paints landscapes, sculpts faces and feels things. Visions of heroism, beauty and growth are uplifting and vice versa, visions of injustice or sorrow cause unhappiness and stress. Books are words, words are thoughts and thoughts are emotions which means reading stories make us feel things. The more we feel, the broader our emotional intelligence. We certainly cannot live thousand lives simultaneously but books can help us see the world through other people’s eyes. Being able to perceive and analyse reality from different standpoints is a mark of empathy, integrity and reason. Not all authors are universally successful or capable of touching souls but that’s the beauty of literature – if we have passion and patience, the right books will choose us and will come into our lives exactly at the right moment.

Here is a random list of books with life stories which helped me grow:

I obviously have a thing for autobiographical fiction and the novels above a just a fraction of what I have collected through the years but an interesting life story in beautiful language is something I’ll be never able to resist.