‘My bookcases reflect my haphazard way of reading’
Linda Olsson’s bookshelf
I set out reading with little guidance and have continued reading in an organic fashion — one book leading to the next. Inevitably, this method leads to mistakes and detours but also to unexpected discoveries.
My bookcases reflect this haphazard way of reading, I’m afraid.
The first bookcase of my life was narrow and imitation mahogany. It occupied the door opening between the kitchen and the living room in my parent’s small flat in Stockholm. It contained the Swedish encyclopaedia, all 21 volumes, father’s collection of the Tourist Association’s year book, mother’s book on knitting and a copy of Thor Heyerdahl’s KonTiki. No fiction, for that we had the library.
My own first flat came with a low bookcase full of Perry Mason crime novels, left behind by the previous tenant. I read them all and added considerably to my English vocabulary.
Then I married and we moved into a small semi-detached house. Among the first pieces of furniture that we bought were three Ikea Billy bookshelves. There is probably not a Swedish home that doesn’t have some. By then, I could afford to buy books and some of those are still with me here on the other side of the Earth.
Today I live in an apartment in central Auckland where two of the four walls of my study are made up of open bookshelves. Initially, I made a half-hearted attempt at sorting my messy collection of books by genre and then alphabetically but during the five years I have lived here the order has gradually dissolved. But I know my books well enough to find what I am looking for anyway. At least my old book friends.
There is the section with worn children’s books. The ones my mother read to me and the ones I read to my children and now read to my grandchildren. Astrid Lindgren’s Pippi Longstocking and all the other magical stories of hers. Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tales. Rudyard Kipling’s Just So Stories in Swedish translation. The newer books are all in English, with Edward Lear’s A Book of Nonsense a favourite.
Then the shelves of Swedish fiction and poetry. A favourite is Karin Boye, from whose poem Poor little child came the title to my first novel, Let me sing you gentle songs. All novels by August Strindberg. Kerstin Ekman. And Vilhelm Moberg’s iconic trilogy about the Swedish emigration to America.
English language fiction and translated fiction is the largest section and it is also the section that keeps expanding. The most recent addition is A Manual for Cleaning Women by Lucia Berlin, a brilliant rediscovered American short-story writer.
The non-fiction section faces the living room, as these books are mostly hardback and look better. Travel, philosophy and language dominate.
Then there are the cook books. Or rather books about food. I am embarrassed to admit that I am addicted to this genre. I rarely cook from them, I just like to read about food. Most of all in The Art of Eating by M.F.K. Fisher.
I rarely re-read books but I often return to look up certain passages. But I do have a very worn copy of Saul Bellow’s The Victim, which I have read many times. It is beginning to fall apart. A bit like me.
Linda Olsson is the author of A Sister In My House (Penguin Random House, $35)