The nice thing about having a library in South Florida is that it never gets disturbed. Most people who come into our condo pretend the books aren't there; at most they'll ask: "Have you read all of these?" To which I usually reply: "Twice." But almost never is anyone tempted to actually examine the collection, let alone ask to take a volume home.
But this week Hania's cousin is visiting from Warsaw, with his wife. The first evening Jurek started talking about travel writing, and mentioned Jan Morris. I said I'd just reviewed her latest book, a collection of vignettes from her years on the road. He asked if he could take it on their cruise. I reluctantly said yes, though I suggested that he should really get a paperback thriller with raised letters on the cover.
I showed him my shelf of Jan Morris books, and recommended "Pleasures of a Tangled Life." What was I thinking? He asked if he could take that too. It's a two-week cruise.
In the Caribbean. I went to my travel classics section and pulled down V.S. Naipaul's "The Middle Passage" and Patrick Leigh Fermor's "The Traveler's Tree," both with chapters on islands their ship will stop at. Jurek said he'd take the Leigh Fermor book; the binding of the Naipaul book was coming loose and he was afraid of causing more damage.
I showed him another book I'd recently reviewed: "Hammer & Tickle: The Story of Communism, a Political System Almost Laughed Out of Existence." He thought he might find this interesting as well.
So now my library, normally pristine, is shot through with holes. I think of Anatole France, who said: "Never lend books. People never return them. My library is full of other people's books." I've read stories of passengers falling overboard and now wonder about books. And I tell myself: "This is not going to be a problem with Kindle."
