Bookshelving

One of my eternal ‘wants’ in life is to one day have my own library at home – wall-to-wall bookshelves filled with books, curated through a lifetime of reading. To me, “making it in life” comes partially in the form of having discretionary money to spend on one’s genuine hobbies, which in my case concern the bulky and certainly not cheap presence of books – lots of them. In my mind, a personal library not only attests to the money needed to grow it, but it also signals intellectual accomplishment, cultural cultivation, taste (hopefully), and an certain display of an unhurried leisurely life. Most importantly, a personal library means that I am at last entitled to living out my adoration for a book-ish way of life, free of guilt.

For the past decade or so, I’ve been in this mode of moving homes every few years, which makes keeping physical books really challenging. Whenever I needed to pack up and leave for another city or country, I woefully wave goodbye to whichever stacks of books I had left. Out of the hundreds of these copies, perhaps only 20 or 30 actually remain, either with me in my current home or in some hidden storage over at my parents’ place. Owning physical books, especially the heavy, expensive ones just gets more and more undesirable and misaligned with my intention to remain open and flexible to the possibility of moving around. Though at times I’m still fantasizing about building my personal library in my “forever home” one day, I’m feel no strong pull towards this vision just yet.

During COVID, I became an avid ebook reader (gasp), thanks to the robust supply of library books via Overdrive. I got over myself and the pretentious notion that ebooks are somehow inferior to their physical versions, and came to love the ease of cycling through hundreds of titles within a year, for free. The ebook collections of public libraries become pretty much the sole trigger for reviving my love for reading to this day, despite all the efforts of formal education to beat this passion out of me. In no other scenario could I possibly go after all my bookish curiosities and access this diversity of books so quickly, cheaply, and easily. Even physical library books take more time to obtain, are less readily available, and remain heavy to lug around than the ebook option.

I’m now quite privileged to be close to multiple public library systems and have access to both their physical and digital catalogs. I never feel like I’m short on books to read nor deprived of access to the titles that I actively look for. I love having a mix of physical books and ebooks that suit my various needs (cozying up with a hardcover versus having several titles downloaded in my kobo during travels). And everything comes for free! I’m not cluttering my home, and I don’t have to feel guilty for piling up books only to have to give them away in the future. On top of that, my fellow readers and I are all sharing resources that are publicly available, without accumulating stuff for private ownership and costing more resources to print multiple copies that only get used once (if at all).

All that to say, perhaps my dream of having a private, personal library is slowly drifting away. I experience so many perks with the public library system that I no longer crave owning more and more books over time. After all, the most important things about books to me are the experience of reading, the knowledge and perspectives I gain through reading, and the things that I can impart from that. Owning books overlaps marginally with these components. I don’t see how a personal library would grant me the satisfaction of reading beyond the superficial signal that I care enough about books to make space for them in my home.

What I think is missing in my reading life is a way to document and share, substantially, the things that books teach me. I still thoroughly enjoy my reading experience, and I still gain insights and lessons from the books I consume. Yet, it remains a solitary act of moving words into my head and locking them in there. I don’t exactly share my reflections forward, nor do I invite others who might find joy in the same books into this experience.

My reading revival during the pandemic lockdown also birthed an online space (on Instagram) for me to share my “book thoughts” publicly, mostly with my friends. What this page helped me achieve was multifold. For one thing, I gained a sense of accountability to engage with what I read more deeply. For another, I got to serve as a “first reader” for many people in my network and community, helping them mark potential interest in certain books. I also got to put on display the books that I had read – a low-cost alternative to that personal library I’ve always wanted. After about a year and a half of posting dedicatedly, I lost the momentum and decided to archive the page. Since then, I’ve had a few moments during which I felt compelled to resuscitate this channel just so I can share my love of reading with others.

As I think about this slowly vanishing dream of having a physical library of my own and the emerging urge to share with others what I read again, I realize that my semi-active book page on Instagram (or “bookstagram”) is there to be both my digital shelf and a space for sharing reflections. At my rate of reading, having a digital catalog of books I have read is the only sustainable (spatially and financially) format. I’m lucky enough to also still have people tuning into any new updates on this page, which means my circle of fellow readers remains more or less intact. What I want to bring forward is my own version of a personal library, complete with short, honest reading reflections, to invite conversations with other readers. It won’t be a perfectly curated collection of books, nor a series of thoughtfully written reviews, but it’s my own way of expressing my love for reading and my invitation for others to experience the same thing.