@brittarnhild
If when you come to The House in the Woods, the first thing you will notice, is the books.
There are hundreds of them, no, actually, there are thousands (around 3000 I believe)
In shelves, on tables, on my night stand, on the floor, in wondow sills, in baskets, in boxes.......using books for interior design is my style!
I never read only one book at a time.
On a small coffee table you find a pile with my Bible, a prayer book, my notebook for prayers and a couple of reflective books.
On the shelf in front of the fireplace is a stack of books from and about Barcelona, our next travel goal.
A small tabel in my studio is topped with books about gardens around the world.
On the floor, close to this table, is a growing pile of books from and about Istanbul, another upcoming place to visit....
.....
Terje always wonder what I pack when we go to the cabin. We have to walk up a steep hill from the car, and he is the one to carry my bag. No, honestly, he doesn´t wonder. After 33 years of marriage he knows. I don´t mind packing clothes as long as I make sure to bring with me enough books.
One of the 1001 reasons why I love him - he has never said "why do you bring all these books back and forth, isn´t the cabin already filled with them?"
This weekend I picked a book out of the cabin book shelf, a paperback which I hadn´t read in almost 30 years. "The Long Valley" by John Steinbeck, sent to me by my best friend when I had a hard pregnancy with Øystein and had to stay in bed for weeks.
Since then I have visited Monteray and Salina Valley, where the book is set, and for a year now my friend is living in California.
This time, almost 30 years after, the book was read with other eyes.
Another book I am enjoying rihgt now is Njál´s Saga. During our week in Iceland in April we visited the area where this saga is set, and I got inspiration for the novel I am writing. So now I need to read the book (a reread, since I also read it many years ago) to make sure I use it correctly.
Then I mentioned Jan Morris and her Contact! the other day.
If you happen to come to The House in the Woods today, you will find me out in the garden,
reading Carlos Ruiz Zafón´s The Shadow of the Wind.
Also a reread, many of my books are read two or three or multiple times. You never wear a dress only once do you, or eat pizza only one time in your life?
With Zafón´s book on my mind, and his graveyard for forgotten books, it felt strange, and a little spooky to climb these stairs on Saturday.
Up to the attic in the old schoolhouse in Todal, a small village near our cabin, with 17 inhabitants.
The schoolhouse attic contains an old library:
The smell of book was intense.
I could have moved right in!
Where do you keep your books?
