Little Things Everywhere

I had a strange day last week.

I work at a second-hand bookshop and stationery store at uni, and we've just refurbished the shop, so I've recently been spending whole days culling old books and organising them for returns to dealers and price alterations. Because we stamp the inside covers of the books, to keep a track of them, I often come across inscriptions wishing love and luck to the previous owners.

Over the last year, my eyes kept being drawn to a copy of Gormenghast by Mervin Peake. Something about the name struck me. I suppose I'd heard of it somewhere. I kept meaning to buy it, but never got around to it. On Thursday, it turned up in my culls pile, and when I opened it up to stamp it, I found this:



It says:

'This book was bought by Mike George at LHR London prior to embarking on his world travels on 9.10.89. He finished reading it in Y.H.A. Pemberton WA on 28.11.89.

It is one hell of a book. Peake creates images as clear as crystal due to his unsurpassed command of the English language.

(Signed) Mike George 28.11.89

Favourite passages: Para 7 p 408
Para 2 p 108
last Para 56 + all 57
Oh soddit! The whole book!'

Is that not the most wonderful thing ever? I couldn't stop grinning. I love book recommendations, I love people who love books, and I love listening to people try to articulate how a book moved them, how the characters felt like they were watching over their shoulders, how the atmosphere stayed with them for days. To have those kinds of things in the book itself, from an unknown reader a decade ago? That is just profoundly wonderful.

I found a few other inscriptions that day, though none as in depth, pledging love, friendship, hope and goodwill. I wondered what had happened to the recipients. Had they loved the book as much as the giver had hoped? Had they re-read beautiful passages, folded down corners, and then felt a little pang when it eventually wandered out of their lives via a garage sale or op shop? Or had they shelved it, meaning to get around to reading it, but never quite managed it? Had they scoffed and set it aside? I love that books have the ability to conjure up stories like that.

Later, as I walked to my car, I wandered past what appeared to be a huge wooden cubby house, around a 5 metre cube, on a grassy knoll near the tennis courts at uni. I swore I'd never seen it before, but it couldn't have been constructed so quickly. Nobody else seemed to be paying it any attention. Puzzled, I walked over and climbed the stairs and found a curiously laid out interior indeed. It looked like something from an Escher painting. I took a photo of it on my phone, which fails entirely to do it justice because the lens isn't wide enough, but still:



I still have no idea what it is. But I pottered around, happily bewildered, breathing in the smell of damp, fresh cut wood, pledged to do a photoshoot there, and left, chuckling at the sweet little secrets the world seemed to be hiding just for me.