up there too, another storage space for books. As the collection continued to grow soon the tea chests had to be given a specific purpose: they were for the books he’d read. a-i in one, j-q in another and r-z in the third. I have another clear memory: myself at 12-years-old with a friend, a future editor, creeping through the empty house and climbing the squeaky ladder to the thick humidity above. Books piled as high as even the tallest 12-year-old and the three tea chests, seemingly a hundred books deep. You can only ever get a feeling for what is on the surface, the rest is hidden, veiled by their association with every book that has come after and before them. “Oh my god,” the future editor exclaimed, “he’s got an original Star Wars.” I suppose many of us discovered that my father had a problem with books at different times, but I’m not sure when I discovered it myself. Was it when the pile of books by his bed, each with their little green square of notepaper marking his place, was high enough to obscure the bedside table? When this pile became three books deep? When my mum got angry that she couldn’t vacuum on his side? Was it when I was a little older, when I mentioned an author… or a movie… or some obscure person from history, and his immediate response would be “I have that book” or “I have all their books” or “I have quite a few biographies about them”. Perhaps it was
The colleÀion was happy, up there in the warmth, close to the sun, the glue sweating slightly and yellowing
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