I’m in the throes of shifting house – downsizing, to be exact. Same number of bedrooms, just more compact living. Plus, I have the added bonus and bliss of a garage after 40 years of parking on the street. Anyone
who lives near the city in a suburb with hardly a garage knows the pain. It’s a small luxury that already feels like a minor miracle.

This kind of move demands an entirely different level of thought. Suddenly I’m confronting the fact that a lot of my furniture simply won’t fit in the new place. From an old terrace to a modern-ish townhouse, I’ve traded walls for windows, and there are precious few surfaces left to lean a bookshelf against. You know where this is going, don’t you… I can’t fit all my books. The curse of built-in low cupboards: wonderful for storage, disastrous for book lovers. I’m sure it’s a dilemma many of you have faced. Light and windows are lovely, but every house needs walls.

Recently my parents also moved, downsizing into a very small space, and we helped them through the process. As anyone who has done this knows, it is excruciating – and heartbreaking, to say the least. Furniture, mementos, photographs, books, even clothing: every item must be judged, one by one, on whether it earns a place in the future. It made me realise how deeply personal value is; what forms part of your history and memory is not always seen the same way by others, even close family.

Their bookshelves were laden with decades of reading: encyclopaedias from the 1960s, novels read and reread, shelves of non-fiction. My mum, who reviewed picture books for this magazine, had her favourites – stories enjoyed by grandchildren and now great-grandchildren. Some went into the small hands of young family, but not all. Letting many of those books go was heart-breaking. Still, there is comfort in knowing they now sit in other hands, being read and loved again.

My own downsizing has me agonising over so many things. Goodbye to my dining table and chairs, chest of drawers, outdoor long bench and chairs. Even my plants, which hold a big chunk of my heart. Half my kitchen, clothes and general ‘things’ will also be off to find a new home. After the experience of Mum and Dad’s move, I looked at my ‘stuff’ in a new light. It’s just stuff! If I popped off tomorrow, who would want it? It’s a tough realisation that the things you have collected over a lifetime – and that includes your beloved library – might not be treated with the same desire and love by others.

So hard decisions will be made and we toughen our hearts. But there are things I can’t let go of because they carry history and meaning for me. There is a bookshelf I’ve had since my 18th birthday. Where will it go? How could I possibly part with it? I run my hand over it and remember the day it was given to me. I had just started my bookselling career.

Faced with the possibility of losing shelves, I’ve begun devising plans. In my mind’s eye, I’m designing shelves to hang above the built-in cupboards. Either that, or my new neighbours will soon hear a great deal of banging as I attempt to dismantle those low-slung cupboards. I suspect the books that can’t have their own shelf will start to appear on top of them anyway, lined up like soldiers refusing to break ranks.

Someone suggested I put the books inside the cupboards. What? Oh no. For me, books need to be seen; every glance triggers a memory of a story, even if it’s only a vague emotion resurfacing. They have to be out, visible, part of daily life. I think for many people, books are part of who they are. For me, they’ve been my life. When I browse my shelves I see fragments of my own story reflected back at me. I love talking with visitors to my home about them, sharing what we’ve loved, and discovering what they’re reading now.

So it’s with a heavy heart that I am wading through my books, taking a Marie Kondo-style approach I first attempted years ago. Almost all my paperbacks, hardcovers, novels and biographies made it into boxes. Just a light cull. It wasn’t a great start. Then came the large illustrated volumes collected over decades: art books, history, travel. I became absorbed as I rediscovered my love of Egyptian and Roman history, revisited the lost world of Irian Jaya and the extraordinary Maasai people, then tumbled back into childhood with Are You My Mother? and the ‘Madeline’ books. I asked myself when I had last opened each one – dust, it turns out, is a very honest measure.

The childhood books stay, of course. Especially those with my wobbly scrawls inside. No-one will ever love them but me but that’s enough.

I now have a much smaller collection of other hardbacks, but my gardening and nature books were non-negotiable. After all, I have new gardens to create and will enjoy poring over those books for inspiration. I have to laugh. Even after what I thought was a brutal cull, I’m still surrounded by boxes of books. You know what? I don’t care. I’ll find a place. That new laundry would make a perfectly good library. •

Rowena