Second-hand books are wild books, homeless books; they have come together in vast flocks of variegated feather, and have a charm which the domesticated volumes of the library lack. Besides, in this random miscellaneous company we may rub against some complete stranger who will, with luck, turn into the best friend we have in the world.
Virginia Woolf
They’re here. In my front room. But ‘wild’ as Virginia Woolf described the second-hand book, I’m not so sure. I couldn’t ignore her adjectival qualifier ‘homeless’. And even though these unpredictable, unfashionable, unfathomable and unexpected books have gathered ‘in vast flocks of variegated feather’, I wondered if by housing and getting to know them I had unwittingly tamed them. Now, though still enchanting, they sit, waiting dutifully, no longer vying for my attention as they had done from the shelves of whatever second-hand bookshop I happened to be prowling. It occurred to me that Woolf’s notion of wild books, while appealing, is reasonable only in so far as I am wild; book-wild, that books and me are kindred—not by blood—but by the second-hand bookshop, Sendakesque lands, ruled by Queens and Kings of all the wild books and where all wild book rumpuses begin.
For the longest time I’ve been at a loss to understand, never mind explain, my book buying mischief to Ali, a book buying rationalist. Fortunately, unlike Sendak’s Max, my impulse control issues have yet to result in my being sent to bed without any supper. Though this may only be a matter of time. I had to act quickly.
What if I was Queen of my very own island of wild books. That way I could justifiably visit and buy from other Kings and Queens. And so, over nine months, in a corner of our living room, a tiny island of wild books has risen. I’ve named it Front Room Books and it’s sprinkled with 20th and 21st century 1st editions, Poetry—with a fondness for New Zealand poets—some NZ Art, Architecture and History. Pleasingly, there are other similarly afflicted book-wild New Zealanders and some who regularly succumb to the joy of taming the wild book. And if anybody asks I tell them, island life is serious fun.
It must have been something I read 