‘It’s lovely to know I’ll never be flummoxed as to what to read next’
Jenny Robin Jones’ bookshelf
Books are like friends, so I have them in every room. The lounge is mainly for much-loved and recently read books that friends might like to borrow. Sometimes they recommend them to their book clubs.
One such coup was Crossing to Safety ,by Wallace Stegner, a still underrated American writer. For several years now, I’ve been sharing memoirs themed on nature, such as Roger Deakin’s Wildwood: A Journey Through Trees and Waterlog: A Swimmer’s Journey through Britain.
Down the hall is 20th century fiction — again with the hope that visitors will ask to borrow. In my little writing room, I keep books related to current projects, plus dictionaries, Shakespeare, literary criticism, books about writers and their work. Other shelves groan with the ugliness of lever arch files.
The bedroom is for the classics. Because they have endured, they bring comfort and reassurance. After watching a dramatisation, I usually go back and reconnect with the author’s style, even if I don’t re-read the whole book.
There are four bookcases in the study. Two are filled with biographies and books on history, religions, art and travel. The third holds New Zealand fiction, creative non-fiction and memoir. One of my favourite authors is Fiona Farrell, whose cast of mind I have learned to love. The last bookcase contains books I haven’t read. From book fairs mainly. It’s lovely to know I’ll never be flummoxed as to what to read next.
Half a bookshelf is reserved for books I loved as a child. During my growing-up in England, I was drawn to books from my native land, especially Hutu and Kawa by Avis Acres. They spoke to me of an exotic country to which I fancifully belonged. Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie enchanted me for years. While in Germany for a month as a young teen, I wired my parents to send over my copy to help me endure the homesickness. There’s something about the optimism that can come from the imagination: if things are bad, imagine them different.
Another book treasured since teenage years is To the Lighthouse, by Virginia Woolf. This was the book that helped me “get” fiction. For the first time I saw that an author must write from an authentic voice. I saw that fiction could speak about society and could make something beautiful out of a drab or miserable life by conveying it with grace and rhythm. It was the book that made me realise I would be a writer.
One book I’d never want on my shelves is Hitler’s Mein Kampf. Just the physical artefact of it seemed to bring me into contact with evil. I needed it during my research for Not For Ourselves Alone — but for all the librarians knew, I was a raging Hitler-lover.
A spreadsheet of books I want to read stands at 470 and is constantly added to. I hear about them from friends, interviews or book reviews. Obviously I can’t keep up with all of them but I focus on those I do read and love. I keep spreadsheet lists of every book I read, alongside relevant information. I also rate and review them on Goodreads, finding fellow travellers that way.
Sometimes I cull books because I’ll never reread them, but mostly I keep them.