The Little Book Room

I read The Little Book Room back in the days when books didn’t have authors but were magical objects that somehow crossed from other worlds into this one. It was red, and worn, and smelled of old paper. It was a collection of stories, and the first story was about a special room, lined with books. I wanted that room, I wanted to be there. And then, miraculously, the book became the room. I have not seen this book since I was a child, but some of the stories are still precious to me. One of them was about a beautiful glass Christmas tree. In anther, a king had to go on an adventure to find a bride. His kingdom was bordered by a tall, thick hedge, beyond which was wasteland. His knights would jump over the hedge on their horses, and there was nothing there. But the children, who crawled under the hedge, knew that on the other side there was a magical forest. And one day, the king crawled under the hedge, and his adventures began.

The book was partly about these magnificent stories, and partly about the pleasure of reading them. That’s what this is about too. Books encountered and remembered. Not just books but the spaces they exist in. You’re welcome to join me, under the hedge.