What kind of a relationship do you have with your books? Or maybe I should ask, do you have a relationship with your books?
I am in this WhatsApp group that is all about books. One time I posed a question to the group members.
‘Is there anyone who would like to swap books?’
See, I have all these books sitting pretty on my shelf. So many books. I will probably never read most of them again because I am not the kind of person that reads the same book twice or watches the same TV show again. Except for Game of Thrones. I watched the hell out of that show! Tyrionne Lannister almost shot the arrow intended for his father’s groin through the screen and right at me.
It was so good! Right??
Anyway, I digress. After I asked that question, I sat pretty waiting for a flood of responses begging to swap books with me. What did I get instead? Someone having a bad day, or a bad life, I really could not tell but boy did he come for me!
This was his response. Verbatim.
‘I find it a trigger that people share books. Or exchange books. It’s cringe. Books are so intimate, like kids or pets.’ Condescending, right?
What the ffff…..??? I was really pissed off and if I was a smoker, I would have puffed a whole pack of Marlboros (they look cool in the movies). Why the hell would you compare books to children?
What is this neurotic thing where people think that everyone should live by their weird standards? If I don’t eat githeri (which I loathe), I don’t understand why everyone does. If I wake up every morning to run 20 kms like a possessed person, I don’t understand why some people are so lazy and can’t do what I do. If I spend every free minute I have at the gym lifting ridiculously heavy weights unprovoked, I don’t understand why everyone simply can’t. If I can cook like a gourmet chef, I don’t understand why everyone can’t. If I can’t share my books, I don’t see why anyone could do that.
It’s really sickening, to me. Do think I over reacted? I know I didn’t so don’t try to convince me.
Anyway, back to that whole relationship with our books thing? The way I see it, I classify readers into two very distinct groups.
Readers and gatherers. Readers and scatterers.
Readers and gatherers are the kind that will not let their books out of their sight. Like the brother man from the WhatsApp group. You are not even allowed to look in the direction of their books or try to riffle through the pages. I understand them. Books are precious and expensive.
There are a lot of people that don’t respect books and it sucks.
Readers and scatterers. They read and do not care about the book once they are done with it. They scatter it to the wind and let it fall into the hands of as many readers as it may. If you ask a scatterer for a book, they will probably not even look up from the book they are currently reading and will probably just go,
‘Yeah, yeah! You can have it. It’s a wonderful book.’
I used to be a reader and scatterer. I may have changed a bit. I still want to scatter my books. It irks me having so many wonderful books that have no one to smile at them often, to tell them they are loved and that they are beautiful. To caress their white and yellowish pages late in the night because they are unput-downable. My poor books who will never experience a mother’s love again because their mother does not read books twice over, or thrice.
I am a different kind of scatterer now. I will give a book to someone if I know for a fact that they will read it and return it. Like my dad. Sure, he takes a year to read the book and it comes back looking a few years older but I love that he is interested in my books. I don’t want to give books to the kind of people that say crazy things like,
‘oh! Gosh! I haven’t read a book since I read the set books in high school. Si unipe moja nikasome. I want to try and start reading again.’
Okay Peter! You want me to believe that you haven’t read a book in twenty-five years but are about to make your debut with MY book?? Never!
I have also turned into a scatterer who wants the book dust to blow my way too. Eye for an eye. Tooth for a tooth. Book for a book. I give you a book, you give me another in exchange.
Oh, and let me mention that I did meet an amazing book swap buddy from the group! A lovely lady from the heart of Murima! Shout out to Sarah! Every once in a while, we make cute book bundles for each other. I put together what she sent me plus a bunch from my stash, then head to Latema Sacco and send the books on their merry way to Nyeri.
In your face dude bro from the WhatsApp group!
Did I forget to mention the e-book and audio books gang? No, I didn’t. I just intentionally left them out because I really have never adapted to the whole e-reading thing. Don’t even get me started on the audio because I just could not even go there. But maybe I will get a kindle and give it a try in 2027, after a certain loss. Cough! Cough! If You Know, You Know.
Just maybe.
So, tell me something guys, for us who love to kudara pages za vitabu, like Juliani once said, do you think I should form a book swap club/WhatsApp group and we can do a little intimate exchange of our children…sorry, books?
My books could do with new and loving adoptive parents.