On books and bookshelves
Finding the right place and order for each of them, and for each genre, is a fine art in itself
s a family of readers, our collection of
fiction is quite eclectic, ranging from comedy to murder mysteries to fantasy
and science fiction to feminist writing – basically the whole gamut of themes.
We have tried to keep books of each genre
together, though not entirely successfully as I found out last week. While
hunting for an Alexander McCall Smith book, I realised that some of our books
have found some strange shelf-mates, probably depending on which family member
placed it.
I finally found the book tucked away between
two Tom Clancy books. Alexander McCall Smith normally shares shelf space with
Margery Allingham, Agatha Christie and Dorothy L Sayers and other mystery
writers, given our belief that Mma Ramotswe would get along famously with
Albert Campion, Hercule Poirot, Miss Marple and Lord Peter Wimsey. John le
Carré’s Smiley
is also to be found here.
An entire shelf is dedicated to Tom Clancy,
Wilbur Smith, John Grisham and Jeffery Archer. Maybe this was planned as the
‘fast-read’ shelf; this would explain why I found Markus Zusak’s Book Thief nestled between
two of the Courtney series books. The really weighty Tibetan Book of the Dead
is also on this rack – the only explanation I can imagine is that someone tried
reading it, and gave it up very fast.
P.G. Wodehouse shares space with Erma
Bombeck. James Herriot and his wonderful books on life as a veterinary doctor
in rural England also find space in the same shelf, as does Gerald Durrell.
This must be our ‘Humour’ shelf.
A little further up the rack is Bill Bryson
with Jerome K. Jerome’s Three
Men in a Boat tucked in between two of his books. Kazuo Ishiguro’s Remains of the Day also
found its way next to Wodehouse — one of us must have felt Stevens would be
happy next to Jeeves, talking ‘butler’ matters.
The ‘women’ shelf has Jane Austen, and I am
sure she is proud to be sharing her space with Simone Beauvoir and Erica Jong.
Erma Bombeck, one of whose books I found here next to Pride and Prejudice, with
her irreverent sense of humour, would have got along beautifully with Jane
Austen. Amy Tan would also be proud of her place next to her country woman Jung
Chang, Jane Austen and Margaret Atwood. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie occupies this
space.
Several Indian authors could have found their
place here and, Shashi Deshpande, Arundhati Roy or Anita Desai would surely be
quite comfortable holding their own in such enlightened company, but I guess
one of us decided they are Indians first.
The erstwhile Indian shelf has Samit Basu
rubbing shoulders with Amitav Ghosh and Chitra Banerjee Divakurni. R.K. Narayan
would have not minded being placed next to V.S. Naipaul, who once paid tribute
to the author, saying he was ‘immediately enchanted’ by his early works. Ruskin
Bond has Khushwant Singh as a neighbour, possibly because of the ‘Himalayan
hill-stations’ connection. I am glad he is in this section rather than with
‘English’ authors.
With the afghan-born American author Khalid
Hosseini and Pakistani authors Bapsi Sidhwa and Kamila Shamsie becoming
favourites, the Indian shelf has become more of an Asian shelf. Now with Elif
Shafak and Orhan Pamuk joining the list of favoured authors, Turkey will need a
place — maybe these will be the Asia-Europe link on our shelf, just as the
nation straddles eastern Europe and western Asia.
Thanks to the size of each book of Amitav
Ghosh’s Ibis trilogy, the Asian shelf is filling up very fast and has started
encroaching into other shelves – something like the way Indians themselves are
permeating societies everywhere in the world.
A young friend has solved the dilemma of
making decisions on whether books should be segregated geographically or
thematically by arranging shelves by colour. While this is visually appealing,
I’m not sure how one would go about locating a book unless you recalled the
colour of the cover!
Thanks to books going ‘walkabout’, we do
spend a while locating one, but then browsing along the racks is a pleasure
too! Maybe colour-coded shelves are a good idea, something like the Shuffle
option for music. You never know what’s next.
Source | The Hindu | 27 February 2017
Regards
Pralhad
Jadhav
Senior
Manager @ Library
Khaitan & Co
No comments:
Post a Comment