Scribbles in the Margins Read online

  To the girl who won’t sleep until she’s had a story.

  Contents

  Preface. Or, finding solace in pages

  1. Handwritten dedications in old books

  2. Visiting someone’s home and inspecting the bookshelves

  3. Impromptu bookmarks

  4. Reading in bed

  5. Beginning a new book

  6. When the lovers get together

  7. Reading in a tent

  8. Blotches, stains and other reminders of where and when you read a book

  9. Old bookshops

  10. Hiding yet more purchases from partners

  11. Just giving up

  12. Reading to a child

  13. Reading a travel book about somewhere you’ll never visit

  14. Feeling bereft having finished a book

  15. Scribbles in the margins

  16. Losing an afternoon organising bookshelves

  17. When a novel makes you snivel

  18. Not ‘getting’ a book people rave about

  19. When film and TV adaptations get it right

  20. Smells of books, old or new

  21. Feverishly awaiting the next book in a series

  22. Hurting with laughter as you read

  23. Libraries

  24. Large bookshops

  25. Discovering an author with a back catalogue to catch up on

  26. Watching a child learn to read

  27. Re-reading an old favourite

  28. When the plot clicks into place

  29. Buying a luxury volume that doesn’t fit on a shelf

  30. Author dedications

  31. Reading in a pub

  32. Spying on what others are reading

  33. Chaotic book rooms and enthusiastic owners trying to find something for you

  34. Enthusing to someone about a book

  35. Pristine books

  36. The back cover

  37. Reading on public transport

  38. Escaping into an atlas

  39. Moving in with somebody and finding doubles

  40. Giving a book as a present

  41. The calm a room of books brings

  42. Pretending to have read something you should have

  43. Hotel, B&B and cottage ‘libraries’

  44. Squeezing a book onto the shelf

  45. Choosing and anticipating holiday reading

  46. Letting poetry tingle your spine

  47. Remembering a book from childhood

  48. Getting waylaid looking at a dictionary

  49. Feeling a book is intimately for you

  50. Finishing a book, putting it down, and thinking about it

  Acknowledgements

  PREFACE

  Or, finding solace in pages

  It is obvious and easy for an author to proclaim the many charms of books. Here, though, I am writing as a reader. This particular book is an attempt to fondly weigh up what makes a book so much more than paper and ink, how reading is so much more than a hobby, a way of passing time or a learning process. It is a celebration of the trivia that so many of us revel in, even if we don’t quite realise it; an observational gallivant among impromptu bookmarks, the scents of bookshops and reading in bed.

  This Delights book was inspired by the chance find, in a pub, of another. In J. B. Priestley’s Delight, the author, a self-confessed ‘Grumbler’, toasts all that is good in the world. He is writing his way out of despondency with grim and grey post-war Britain. In short essays, we share his delight with ‘Shopping in small places’, ‘Frightening civil servants’, the ‘Sound of a football’, ‘Sunday papers in the country’, ‘Smoking in a hot bath’ and 109 other topics.

  Priestley sought to remind his readers that there remained simple pleasures in life, no matter how dark our surroundings may seem. Now, in a cynical, jaded world of distressing news bulletins and online trolls, a world monstrously faster and angrier than Priestley’s, this message is once more required. For so many of us, such sweet solace is to be found nestled among pages.

  These declarations of love are about the book as a physical, almost living, object, and the rituals that surround it. They demonstrate what books and reading mean to us as individuals, and the cherished part they play in our lives from the vivid greens and purples of childhood stories to the dusty comfort novels we turn to in times of adult flux. Books are an escape door open to all people, and this one is a cosy reminder of how and why.

  The long-predicted slow death of the book now seems unlikely, rendering this a good time for us to rejoice in the many and sometimes odd little ways in which the book makes us happy. Further, the place of books needs a cheerful salute, which I hope this volume is; books remain at the fulcrum of society, education and culture. They withstand and are sometimes at the forefront of technological change – ebooks are an ingenious invention and offer many joys of their own – and social trends. They still rescue many a difficult Christmas present conundrum.

  Books are more attainable, and therefore democratic, than ever before. Reflecting this, these delights are, I hope, universal indulgences that are felt by the prisoner and the priest, the library-addict and the owner of a personal library. Read them, think about your own, and then move on to another book . . .

  1

  Handwritten dedications in old books

  ‘To my Dear Husband. August 16th, 1936.’ ‘From Betty with love, Xmas ’49.’ ‘To Sarah, keep this with you as you go. Love, Mum and Ron x.’ Each of these sits snug in the top left-hand corner of an inside cover. It is almost as if the words know they shouldn’t be there and are attempting to creep from the page. The handwriting is always ornately joined – ‘Husband’ like an unfurled and manipulated streamer from a party popper; ‘Xmas’ like a careful Red Arrow vapour trail – and the ink is charcoal black or early-evening blue.

  The messages carried are celebratory and loving, though often in the simple and restrained language of their age. Sometimes, you sense that pen and ink liberated a book-giver not prone to spontaneous declarations of affection to go wild: ‘To darling Thomas, happy birthday, Father.’ There are in-jokes, too, knowing references we will never understand, and the vaguest silhouettes of lives.

  Such great unknowns of book dedications are a significant part of their charm. We are transported backwards to when this book was first chosen and given, a story within the story, but this time we will never know the ending. Did Thomas enjoy the book? Did the Dear Husband even read his? Did Sarah carry hers, and to where? As so many are dated like vital contracts, we can smother these notes in their historic periods – anything written to a son between 1900 and 1914 is especially poignant – but still we are only guessing at what happened next. Did the receivers like the book, perhaps lend it to friends? How many times have these words been loved before? Was it not really the title sought after, unwrapped impatiently on Christmas Day and gladness feigned? How did it end up in the second-hand shop, or in the warehouse of the online ‘used’ book retailer? Had it been cherished until death and house clearance? Or passed around, through the ages, a restless minstrel yet to find home?

  These paper time-machines shroud us in the comforting thought that a book has a life, and we are now a part of it. They add an extra layer of pleasure to buying an old book, and create a timeless connection between you and a long-gone reader. The two of you now share a never-to-be-revealed secret. Your lives may have been lived in very different worlds, but they are united by the exact same ink and characters.

  The next time you give a book, take a moment to write a few brief words to the gift’s recipient. For you are also reaching out a hand to someone who hasn’t even been born yet.

  2

  Visiting someone’s home and
inspecting the bookshelves

  As a child, the houses I frequented had very few books on display. Most, including my home, had one or two shelves’ worth, usually part of a dining-room cabinet and behind glass, as if they were to be seen and not read. Scattered in no particular order would be an abridged encyclopaedia, a bible, a dictionary, a couple of Jilly Cooper novels, some hardback photobooks about war, a set of unread plainly-bound volumes received as a gift, titles about diets and canals pertaining to midlife crises and short-lived hobbies, a tired atlas and a large annual tying in with a BBC television series.

  The people who owned these shelves – my parents and my friends’ parents – were born just after World War Two. When they read, books were not bought, but borrowed. Libraries were necessary and useful, whereas living-rooms were for porcelain ornaments and the telly, and not showing off. Perhaps it is why in adulthood I am fixated with bounteous shelves, and indeed with building up my own collection – we never had bookshelves, now we must have two rooms containing them. They are my pampered generation’s version of indoor toilets. Or, perhaps I am just nosey.

  I know that I am not alone, that there are, right now, people scanning others’ bookshelves and getting to know their owners in a way conversation would not allow. These shelves are someone’s biography that, try as you might to avoid it, reveal covers by which they can be judged. This isn’t entirely unfair or sinister: what better way to decide if a new lover is worth wasting time on, or to find something in common with your hosts when forced into a social occasion by your more affable partner? It is also possible that those hosts want you to look at their shelves – a book collection can be an ostentatious display of intelligence and worldliness.

  Arrival in a house or a flat kindles a desire to secure time alone with the bookshelves. The offer of a drink, preferably a slightly complicated one, is accepted, a distraction for your ferreting. Should a host be cooking, all is golden and hours are plenty. By the time he or she is washing up, a character profile has been shaped.

  Either way, there will be a rushed early scan of all shelves as you excitedly inhale the books facing you like a cat in a fish and chip shop, and pull loose two or three titles in quick succession. You might find yourself flooded with book envy, or sighing longingly at an alphabetically-organised collection of near perfection or a vast swathe of orange Penguin Classics. If there are at least half-a-dozen volumes that you too own, the omens for friendship or more are good.

  A host re-enters the room to find your face illuminated having observed one such book-in-common. That is the real joy, not the prying, the searching for clues or the judging. You have found a fellow passenger and there are many worlds inside this one that you can visit together without even leaving the sofa. Best of all, when the evening’s exit does come, your new friend may insist upon lending you a book or two that he or she is sure you’ll love. If ever returned at all – ‘It is only a fool who lends a book, and a greater fool who returns it’ goes the Arabic saying – it will probably not be for a long while. When reacquainted, though, an unexpected delight is passed back to the owner.

  3

  Impromptu bookmarks

  The pursuit of reading is pleasurably free of clutter. It is a simple activity, requiring no equipment or accessories, merely a book and some stolen time. Even the sole common accoutrement – the bookmark – is not necessary.

  Bookmarks are the second socks of literature, frequently and inexplicably going missing in action. I have lost them all: bookmarks with tassels, bookmarks with beaded string, bookmarks boasting Shakespeare quotes, bookmarks displaying historical timelines, ribbon bookmarks, leather bookmarks and even a lavishly-designed wooden one. You could wallpaper a cathedral with the amount of card promotional bookmarks I have misplaced.

  Lucky, then, that there is such delight in improvising to create makeshift bookmarks from any vaguely thin item handy. Train tickets make excellent do-it-yourself bookmarks, as do leaflets which fall from newspapers, takeaway menus, giftcards from birthday-present wrapping and even utility bills. There is also an option to ‘dog-ear’ the page, turning the corner into a triangle so it resembles half of a sandwich from a doll’s house. This, though, violates an unspoken sanctity, scarring a book for life, as does leaving it open at the relevant pages, upside down on a bedside table, imperilling its spine and leaving fault lines. To some of us, such behaviours are acceptable and charming – a footprint and a stake claimed, or a child’s height marks on a door frame never to be painted over.

  All of this springs from the fear of losing your place and the need to find that place when time has finally stopped and you can read again. It is also to prevent re-reading a page or passage when there are so many other books in the world to be reading next (unfortunately, drunken reading will always mean recapping the next day). You could, of course, attempt to memorise your page number. There is theatre in trying to successfully guess it again, and turning to find that you are correct. You may even have a tiny celebration. That the rigorous march of progress is monitored in such haphazard, spontaneous a manner is a reminder that the reader is in charge. For all its regimental order, a book becomes volatile to the whims and disorder of its custodian, and blissfully temporary. Impromptu bookmarks are sandcastles built upon motorways.

  4

  Reading in bed

  It can be the most trying of routine days. Leaking shoes, lunch made but left at home, traffic jams and interminable mid-afternoon meetings. Meetings which plunge you into an existential crisis or light sleep, meetings whose only consolation is doodling and writing down the foul made-up business-speak of senior managers. Then missed connections on the way home, absent supermarket ingredients, children who have forgotten how to sleep, rows with partners, and a packed-up boiler. Still, with every exhausting second, sanctuary ticks closer.

  Lingering through daylight and evening’s trials is the promise of night-time’s rosy haven. You, your bed and a book: a heavenly retreat. This is double refuge – firstly, hidden from the world beneath bedcovers; secondly, entering another between book covers. Begin reading and you are transported, despite being bedridden in a day soon to close. You end it by saying goodbye and sinking into another universe. Of course, reading books should always be like this, but all is enriched in the thick quiet before midnight. The slumbering breaths of partners and children beside you are no distraction, nor rain tapping at the window or wind roaring. If anything, such comforting sounds enhance the charm of your bedtime stories. Here you are, the door is closed, the day is done, the pages are open and all the worlds you need have awoken.

  Under the bedside lamp’s glow, you begin one page sitting up and the next lying down. There are sideways wriggles and sighs as you struggle to find the perfect contortion for reading, and the complaints of partners awoken by laughter and gasps, but these are all part of the performance and distraction of reading in bed. Not for one line are you thinking of leaking shoes or broken boilers, and you may well be successfully putting back a dreaded tomorrow morning. Time hurtles forward – midnight comes and you recalculate the hours of sleep required. Just one more paragraph, just one more chapter, you’re not ready yet for a return to reality, even if your eyelids are weighing heavier by the word. The book has become a voice whispering to you and you alone. Once more encountered is the childhood joy of reading beneath the sheets with a torch. Today is gone, tomorrow is on hold, and reading at bedtime has left you contentedly abandoned in a world all of your own.

  5

  Beginning a new book

  New books find their way to us via a number of routes. Most obvious is bricks-and-mortar store browsing. There we are, in a shop, reading the back cover, brushing fingers over embossed titles, handling and patting, appreciating the book as an object. We can tickle spines and open up to brush pages, and – if no one’s looking – devour their smell. If everything chimes then the book is placed in a wrestler’s headlock, claimed as a joey kangaroo in its mother’s pouch. Chances are that it will soon
have siblings – our eyes are bigger than our bedside tables.

  Or perhaps a new book may be fostered from a library or foisted upon you by a friend who insists you will appreciate it. On the way home, blurbs are again consumed, and other furnishings idly absorbed – the review quote and the About the Author, the writer dedication and the font declaration.

  Then there is that saintly thud of an online order plummeting from the letterbox, or the luscious scrape of cardboard on floor as, on returning home, you push the front door against the package. To buy online leaves you blind in comparison with bookshop scrutiny, but the gamble is surely worth the prize of feverishly setting about unwrapping the parcel. We are Charlie Bucket unwrapping a Wonka Bar, and there is a golden-ticket feeling every time.

  By whichever route a book finds us, in our hands we now hold, we hope, a future escape. We are cradling delayed giggles and sobs, outcries and cheers, and flicking through pages among which we will soon find the time to lose ourselves. Before the reading begins, there is a pregnant sense of promise. The experience of this book will, if we have chosen well, enrich us and make us feel. It will pluck us out of the humdrum and cast us into uncertain and curious terrains, or drop us in sepia times. At this point, we do not know quite where we are going, how we will get there or indeed, whether we will even enjoy the ride. In the dawn stages of a slow-burning novel, a creeping fear can set in that this is not the book for us. Press on, though, and to find a gloopy book now motoring along by page 100 is a separate joy.

  Frequently, starting a new book does not mean finishing another. There is no shame in that. In fact, it stands to emphasise just what a fine thing beginning a new book is – it is worth cheating on other titles for. It is almost impossible for us to stop ourselves: the covers are open and we are off, once more at the mercy of a new tale. It is a familiar and yet original excitement, as another journey gets underway.