Who the hell has my dream book? Seriously, my copy of Ludvík Vaculík’s A Czech Dreambook, that big beautiful green hardcover that Karolinum Press mailed me from Prague in 2020, which I glowingly reviewed and have scarcely let out of my sight since – who’s got it? I need it for a thing, but cannot find it. I am pretty sure I loaned it to someone. But who?
Huffily I stomp back and forth through my apartment, poking my nose behind pot-plants and paper-piles; as I do, I find myself listing out my friends and accusing them of larceny one by one. To be guilty, of course, you need both actus rea and mens rea. Thom loves Central Europe, but have I even seen him recently? Julia likes intertext, and that book is, like, top-tier intertextual, but Julia loaned me two books last week and she probably would have mentioned the Vaculík then. What about Delphine? She’s had my Ghosts of Berlin for like two years, although I don’t hold it against her, because she is a human rights lawyer, so fair cop if my little tome on urban reconstruction isn’t among her top priorities. Hey, I hope she’s doing well. Maybe I should text her.
Hang on, I think, picking up and putting down a pile of Twisted Spoon titles, I bet it’s bloody John. John!! But then I can’t be too cranky: John’s copy of Weimar has been propping up my computer monitor ever since I moved into this apartment. I wonder if he needs that one back. Sorry, John…
It’s a curious thing, the local book-sharing economy. I was recently advised that I’ve gained a reputation for pressing books on people I know around town. “Berlin’s mystical book fairy,” as one friend put it after she met someone at a party who’d received from me a big tote bag of light reading during a crisis. Some people are far less promiscuous with their books, recommending them to you without also actually giving you their copy. Others lend them out but keep good track of who has what. I once met someone who takes a photo of the borrower with the book in their hands, so they know exactly what’s where: an efficient solution, sure, but a slippery slope. What’s next, a biometric app that loads your fingerprint data alongside the ISBN into a Goodreads account co-managed by the Bundesnachrichtendienst? Nice try, Zuckerberg.
Exchange may have its risks, but it is worth it. “Neither a borrower nor a lender be,” says Polonius in William Shakespeare’s Hamlet – but then again, Polonius was a twat who got himself killed. I choose to lend; I choose to borrow. My bookshelves today are filled with other people’s books. And there is an intimate thrill to figuring out what book someone might like, somewhere between playing bookseller and literary pharmacist. I know my reader friend is having problems at work, but if they ever crack open that Horst Evers book I gave them, they’re guaranteed to have a laugh; a certain writer friend is battling a narrative problem, but who knows, maybe my copy of A Model Childhood will help. I’ve certainly enjoyed the same done unto me.
Indeed, swapping, lending and borrowing books can be a real act of friendship – or at least an act of sussing out where an acquaintanceship might go. Is this a thing we might have in common? Give it a read and see. Sometimes it provokes slightly awkward situations, like when you know you aren’t going to read a certain book but there is no way to return it without admitting that, look, alright, I really can’t be bothered. But reading is naturally aspirational, and sometimes a particular volume needs to haunt your home accusingly for several weeks or months before you finally dive in. This must be one of the healthier kinds of peer pressure we’ve got.
Books were made for passing on. They are made of cheap materials, and – unless they’re first editions or signed – lose financial value almost immediately. What matters are the words, and words should get moving. So let the books circulate! Walt Whitman once wrote: “The gift is to the giver, and comes back most to him – it cannot fail.” I know my books won’t all come back to me, but I don’t mind. In fact, when I think of all my books scattered across the city’s apartments, and about everyone else’s books that are currently sitting in my own, it makes me sentimental. All our bookshelves, like our minds, are all mixed up and interwoven. Still: I really would like my Czech Dreambook back, please.
