The shrinking space for books within our homes

More than a year ago, at the apartment complex where I stay, someone suggested setting up a space for a library within the premises. It evoked nodding approvals, enthusiastic responses, pledges of book donations and so on. At the same time came another suggestion for a sports area for children, which the building was sorely lacking. Soon enough, work began on an indoor sports court. But the library was, well, forgotten. It’s not that nobody wanted a library. It’s just that nobody wanted one so badly. And there was nothing surprising about it. Pre-Covid, there used to be a couple of lending libraries in my neighbourhood. Today, there are none.

Which brings to mind what writer Neil Gaiman said at a lecture some years ago: “The simplest way to make sure that we raise literate children is to teach them to read, and to show them that reading is a pleasurable activity. And that means, at its simplest, finding books that they enjoy, giving them access to those books, and letting them read them.” Gaiman was building a case for public libraries. He added, “Prose fiction is something you build up from 26 letters and a handful of punctuation marks, and you, and you alone, using your imagination, create a world and people it and look out through other eyes. You get to feel things, visit places and worlds you would never otherwise know. You learn that everyone else out there is a me, as well. You’re being someone else, and when you return to your own world, you’re going to be slightly changed.”

Gaiman couldn’t be more right. Everyone worries about the receding role and shrinking space of public and private libraries, which is truly worthy of some serious discourse. But there is another equally grim reality that may not have the statistics to back it up: the shrinking space for books within our homes. Ever so often, there are requests from people wanting to give away books, especially when shifting houses. But there aren’t always takers for them. Both the generous givers and reluctant takers know this too well: that books take up space, accumulate dust and may never even be read. There’s an anecdote about Jacques Derrida, philosopher, father of deconstruction and a notoriously abstruse writer. When asked if he had read all the books in his vast library. Derrida replied, “Only four of them. But I read those very, very carefully.”

It’s true that books were the Google for an earlier age. Today, they jostle for space with gadgets, crockery, toys, knick knacks and all the clutter that so defines modern-day living in cubby-hole apartments.

So, are we witnessing the slow death of home libraries? It may be too premature to posit that. But we may be headed there. It is not that people don’t enjoy reading. Evidently, there are people writing books and there are people buying them. There are socially active online book clubs with a wide network. We have audiobooks and e-books that sustain reading and make reading sustainable too. But should these digital disruptors make the home library conveniently dispensable? That’s where the problem lies.

Writer Douglas Adams was being witty but spot-on when he said, “We notice things that don’t work. We don’t notice things that do. We notice computers, we don’t notice pennies. We notice e-book readers, we don’t notice books.” Technology has indeed made books more accessible today. But it may also have invisibilised them in the home space. The visibility and accessibility of physical books create an informal and enriching environment of reading at home. They foster conversations around books, broaden the mind-space and make us more discerning readers. That in itself is a big deal. But that’s possible only when someone spies a book on a shelf. Which makes the whole idea of printed, physical books in a home a shared experience. Writer Margaret Atwood, while advocating reading and writing at a young age, cautioned that “if there are no young readers and writers, there will shortly be no older ones. Literacy will be dead, and democracy — which many believe goes hand in hand with it — will be dead as well”.

A few years ago, a global research led by sociologist Joanna Sikora of the Australian National University found that home libraries equipped children with life skills, enhancing literacy, numeracy and technology aptitude in adulthood. “Growing up with home libraries boosts adult skills in these areas beyond the benefits accrued from parental education or own educational and occupational attainment,” the study said.

So, why not make room for books, whether one reads them or not. The Japanese, as ingenious as always, even have a word for that: tsundoku. In other words, the art of buying books but not reading them, and indulgently allowing them to pile up!