The Woeful Bookworm

Last time I moved, my friends complained at the amount of books and cooking stuff I had. They really shouldn’t complain about the cooking stuff; at least they never complained when I had them over for feasts. The books, I kind of get. They are heavy when boxed. But it’s not my fault my friends don’t want to borrow my books so don’t benefit from them! 

I have always been a reader, but Hong Kong isn’t the best place for bookworms. My love for books, along with my love for sports, has been somewhat dampened since moving here, but my love is so strong that it can never be fully killed. 

As a child, I spent hours drawing up floor plans for my dream house, and they usually ended up being half library. It would have been more efficient to just take a picture of the Beauty and the Beast library since that was my ideal. From age ten to eighteen, I read around ten books a week. I was such a regular at the library they even had me work there one summer. In college, I worked at the university library all four years, usually doing night shifts (and holding impromptu trivia nights over the intercom!). 

I even used to sleep in a fortress of books. When I lived in Alaska, I worked at the public library, and library staff had a 50-book check-out limit which I maxed out on multiple occasions. I slept on the floor, because I wasn’t going to live there long and I didn’t want to buy a bed (and because of heated floors!), so I built walls of books around my sleeping bag. I could reach out and grab any book I liked from the comfort of my downy bed. It’s as close to the Beauty and the Beast library as I’ve ever gotten. 

In Hong Kong, sadly, I now balk at a new book purchase. Every time I hold a book in my hands and feel the temptation raging, I also imagine adding yet another box to the truck the next time I move. And I usually put the book down with a sigh and decide to just reread Lord of the Rings. 

My new system is that I have exactly one Ikea bookshelf, and I cannot have more books than will fit on that shelf. Well, that shelf and the mini bookshelf in my room. And the few that sit on the floor in my room. And I might have a few at work. But who’s counting?

Not to mention that Hong Kong bookstores here are kind of downers. Even my favorite bookstore, a bookstore/hipster lifestyle shop/artsy cinema/cafe, manages to kill my book joy. Although the books look nice from afar, when you get close you find that most of them have been entombed in shrouds of plastic. That’s right; you aren’t supposed to look inside the books! 

Well I guess that’s not technically true. If you really want to see inside a book, then you can ask the staff to open it up for you (or when feeling like a rebel sneakily cut the tape and slide it out yourself). But similar to trying on too many items of clothing in a store that actually has attentive dressing room attendants, I don’t feel like I can ask the staff to open up every book I want to see when I’m browsing.

Finally, there is the Hong Kong library. I do go there to get books sometimes (I just checked out Moby Dick; wish me luck), but I find the selection a bit lacking, and the books smell like a recycling shop. Not to mention I have gotten chased by library staff before (apparently they rigorously enforce the no talking rule). But my biggest problem is that now that my mother is not driving me to the library once a week, I have the tendency to rack up library fines. Some things never change. 

So…..any of you have any books I can borrow? As long as you don’t charge late fees. I promise I’ll buy you a new copy if I spill coffee on it. Anyone?

Note: for those of you who are going to suggest I get a Kindle, I do have one and I do use it. But I also forget to charge it. A lot. Some things never change.