Three years ago I arrived in this city with a couple boxes of books in the back of a car. As of this morning, my wife and I have a one-bedroom apartment with a bookcase on almost every available flat wall. At this rate, in another year we’ll have to replace our furniture with an elaborate bookcase-maze. And this isn’t counting the closet full of boxed books I have in storage back in Tennessee. It was the same in China: arrive in a new place with maybe half a shelf of books, leave with a bookcase and a half. And that’s when living in a city without a single English-language bookstore.
My point isn’t to complain about the number of books we have. I love our books! (Though they make moving a pain.)
But when I visit other people’s apartments, I notice: most of my friends have maybe a couple shelves, unobtrusively stuck in corners somewhere in their living room. These are people who read, who read voraciously, and yet somehow the books seem to roll off them. I don’t imagine they’re throwing the books away (horror!), but I also never hear about mass trips to used book dealerships, or secret e-Bay selling binges. So, what gives? Where do your books go?