WHO will read my books when I die?
So many much loved and often read books from my childhood onwards are in the bookcase…holding so much learning, dreaming and and other worlds travelled.
Will they be gathered and dumped in a Salvation Army bin? Or set fire to in a searing bonfire?
I watched a woman on a quiz show miss out on $50,000 because she didn’t know which early governor of Australia was overthrown during the Rum Rebellion – She was 30 and supposedly well educated. Obviously had never read Mutiny on the Bounty, or Sara Dane.
The pleasure of smelling a brand-new book!
The joy of being immersed in the story!
Standing with Scout on the porch hoping Boo Radley would come out!
Being Anne in Persuasion, reading the note from Frederick!
Rhett Butler saying, “Frankly my dear I don’t give a damn.”
Books have always been part of my family life, and a search for one, across two years, went all over Australia, because my Mum loaned a favourite to my Nana, who then loaned it to someone else…and it was never returned.
It’s called No Survivors, by Will Henry, and it’s in my bookcase again, courtesy of abebooks.com.
But Mum was so angry with Nana, who couldn’t fathom why… so the search began.
Mum checked every second hand book store as she and Dad travelled Australia, to no avail.
My brother Jon did the same…I wound up writing the story of the missing book in a newspaper column where I worked at the time, and presto, a lady phoned me to say it was in the Geelong library.
Eureka! I phoned the library to ask if I could buy it, and the snooty woman said no…but said occasionally they did have book sales of older books.
“Look. I said…Ï am perfectly willing to come down there and steal it, so you might as well sell it to me.”
I think I scared her.
There was a stunned silence, then she said it could be bought for five dollars.
I quickly phoned the person who had told me where it was, and she ran down and bought it. She first read it, then her brother, and next posted it to me.
I read it and then I proudly sent it to mum…who said – it had the wrong cover… sigh.
