About a year ago, my mum fell in love with a bookshelf in an antiques shop. She's not the kind of person who shops in antiques shops, so this was unusual. It's a very sturdy, wide, gorgeous bookshelf and it came full of books for €20. So she bought it.
For a few days our kitchen was full of boxes of old books. The smell of old books permeated the house and it was heaven. Some are very old, some less so. There's a mindboggling variety, and it was amazing to see them all. We leafed through for inscriptions and things hidden between the pages. It was like a treasure hunt. We found an amazing picture of a group of young soldiers from around the time of WW1. We left it in the book, and I can't remember which one. It has inspired me to write inscriptions on all my books now, just in case someone in 30 years time gets their hand on it. Even things like someone's name and a date excite me.
We gave away some things - like a big bundle of music notes, some of which were the original owner's compositions. Mum gave that to an old teacher of hers. (he didn't teach her music, I got my nonexistant musical talents from her). But we kept all of the books.
I was passing by earlier and paused to glance at the titles. And then I decided, I want to read some of these books. Some titles on the shelf are familiar, some are not. I'm going to pick one at random every so often and give it a go.
