Shelf Life: On the Stories Our Books Tell About Us
For the last two years I’ve worked almost solely from home, meaning I spend most of my days on video calls. The setup of my apartment is such that there are few good places to Zoom. I take most meetings from the hallway near my bedroom, an interior passage where, over a decade ago, my dad and I built shelves for all my books.
Are you in a library? a co-worker once asked me. No, I laughed. Although it does feel like it here sometimes. I’ve also been asked: Is that a fake background? And, perhaps the most common question: How many of those books have you read?
I probably should know the rough ratio of the books I’ve read to the number of books I own. But I don’t. I’ve added and subtracted too many titles over the years. Besides, when it comes to the books a person puts on display, sometimes the actual books themselves are beside the point.
The first proper bookshelf that I ever owned
