I think I have posted something similar before... or maybe I just meant to. I have visited The Library, religiously, every second or third Saturday since I was in Grade 2. As friends and readers may know, a 'little birdie' broke into our house one night and flew away with our TV. 'What will these children do without a TV?' my parents wondered.
'Read!' they shouted in unison. (No, not really. I don't how the conversation really went.)
The next morning we were surrounded by books in waist-high (my seven-year-old waist), horizontal bookshelves. This experience meant little to me at the time, mostly because what I knew about reading was Johnny and Mary going to town, spewing rhyming non sequiturs, depicted as children in 'sensible clothes' prancing around.
We were given barcoded cards, but the entry into the system was still done with cards placed inside the books when shelved and removed when they were taken out. (Yes, I am that ancient. I learnt to use a computer on MS Dos.)
The first book we took out on our first library cards was a picture book featuring crocodiles. Each page was filled with jungle scenes and crocodiles and tiny creatures to find - a mouse under a fern, a bird in a nest... We (my sister and I) took this book out every few weeks, until my mother insisted I was too old for it. I continued to take it out as a show of autonomy.
It all steamrolled from there. Soon I was reading my complement of books (three), plus two on my mother's card, in a week. I would finish at least one of these books that same Saturday. I would hide a book under my pillow and either hold it at an angle to catch the light from the passage or sit in the light that fell in through my open doorway with one ear cocked for the sounds of my parents going to sleep. I was never very good at pretending to be asleep when they checked in on me though.
In my defense (and that of my shortsightedness), I was never one of those children who fall asleep quickly. I could lie there for hours and hours and hours staring into the dark and imagining what the witch under my bed was planning to do to my toes and what I would do without toes, so why not make better use of my time - and imagination?
By Grade 8, I had the reading level of a Grade 12 - after which, I confess, my reading habit took a brief nosedive. I had read all the books in the children's and young adults' section, but wasn't quite ready for the adults' section (no below-the-belt humour intended). My world righted itself in Grade 10, though.
Predictably, I took English Literature as one of my undergraduate majors, and fell in love repeatedly. During my holidays from prescribed reading, I consumed everything I could find in the library by the author I was then enamoured with: Toni Morrison, Rebecca West, Henry James, EM Forster, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Zakes Mda... In my third year, I got a job as a bookseller, so now I could take five books from the library, three books on apro from the shop and buy books at two-thirds of the retail price.
If I sound as though I've read a ton of books, that's why. Note: trade publishers also give booksellers complimentary/advance copies twice a year.
By turns, I have worked as a book reviewer, publicist, editor and publisher, all of which, my friends, equals (yes) more free and discounted books. As you can imagine I have towers of the things, mostly in boxes at my mom's house, which amounts to a good few years-of-reading's worth. Still, I visit the library every second Saturday and/or Wednesday. I never take less than my full allocation and, no, I don't read them all, but I get to look at them for two weeks.
This post was supposed to about the Cape Town Central Library, which has become My Library because of the range of books, the architecture and mass of books. This library is where I go when I need some reassurance. It's my rabbit hole. There are bookshelves around you, above you and in little rooms to the side... I can breathe there.
Sadly, I do not have the guts to delete this entire post and begin again. So perhaps those of you in the city should just take a gander instead.
PS. The library card is free, and you can take out seven books (I squealed out loud when the librarian told me) for two weeks and renew them twice - and then take them out as new books again! And the card works in any of the municipal libraries, so you just check online which library has the book you're looking for and pick it up. Really, why are you still in front of your computer?
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