I have this recurring dream where I am buried alive under a pile of books which have inevitably tumbled off my bedside table. As I'm laying there, struggling to breathe, I'm reading the blurb on the back of Ann Patchett's latest, Commonwealth, and my last thought before I die is I wish I had have finished that.
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For as long as I can remember there has been a pile of books next to, or under, my bed. Books I just have to get around to reading. I have a system. If they're on the bedside table they have priority, under the bed less so, and increasingly, if they're tucked away in corners of my bedroom I will get around to them one day.
You know that day, that precious day, when you have time to read, a day where you finish a book in a day. (I actually had one of those recently, sneaking in an indulgent reading of JP Delaney's The Girl Before - it's not released until February but you have to read it. Sort of like Gone Girl, but sexier and spookier. Highly recommended. Weird too, that the last time I remember doing the book in a day thing was with Annabel Crabb's Wife Drought. And it was great not feeling guilty about laying on the lounge reading that and not doing all the wifely things I should have been doing.)
I think you can tell a lot about a person by the books on their bookshelf. Let it be known that I will judge you if ever I get the chance to peruse your shelves. I kind of like people with an eclectic mix. You can tell a lot about their life journey. A few children's books you just can't part with, some university text books, some (early) Patricia Cornwell, The Hobbit, the autobiography of an athlete, a self help book about transformation.
Indeed I find it kind of off-putting when I enter someone's home (and by enter, I mean am invited, it's not like I'm sneaking into your place to assess your reading habits) and there are no books.
Yes, they can be untidy things. (Note recurring dream.) But seriously who doesn't have books? I met a woman once, our children had just started kindergarten together, who admitted her family had no books in the house. And yes I did judge her. I'm thinking how are her children going to cope at school, has she never read to them, how does she steal a moment just for herself.
I remember visiting her house. It was pristine and neat and far better decorated than my place. There was a room with shelves but only ornaments and the occasional photo were there to look at. I sort of felt lost.
I remember visiting Jack Waterford's home once and the feeling was just the opposite. A well known collector of books, his home was like a library. And the thing is too, even though every other human on the planet would have no idea how to find a book in it, Jack would know exactly where that 1927 copy of some cookbook about pastry actually was. Right next to Bob Hawke's biography.
It is interesting then, where I've recently written about Australia's flagging test results, that the "number of books in the home" is used to compare results. While the relationship between the number of books in the home and student achievement is not definitive, there is a very strong relationship between the two. For example in Year 8 science, 20 per cent of students who reported having less than 25 in the home did not reach even the low benchmark. Twenty-one per cent of students who reported having many books, more than 200, scored on average 33 points higher.
So it's proven then that books are valuable. Buy your children some for the holidays, buy yourself some, go visit your library, or a second hand bookstore.
Just read people. And I won't judge you for whatever title you choose. I'll be too busy digging myself out of my wordy coffin.
