A Medal for Manon

Books, books and yet more books.

Joan

4/9/20244 min read

Please don't get me wrong. We love books: paperbacks or hardbacks; picture books for children or novels for older readers; recipe books or DIY manuals; or those Rough Guides to travel that have helped us to negotiate some wonderful places. But life moves on. Moreover, when it comes to research , in many ways the internet has become a very trusty substitute. Recently we cleared our bookshelves to enable the decorator to have access to our grubby walls. When the work was completed, we looked at the light and the space that had been created, and began to think of storing our much loved books elsewhere. And then we thought again. This house is large and we are no longer young. One day we may have to move . Just imagine moving all those heavy tomes yet again. And so we set about sorting our books, in order to discard some . But then another problem cropped up. We live in France, and most of our books are in English. Whilst Emmaus, or Secours Populaire charities do welcome discarded books, will they want English ones? There is a very large container at our décheterie especially devoted to unwanted books. We would tip them there. At least then, they would be recycled.

Time to give away our books.

Sorting...

It was going to be easy wasn't it? Any books in French would be donated to the special 'help yourself' bookshelves outside our mairie...done!

Travel guides...out! They were very useful at the time, but places change. What's more , we can always seek current advice on the internet.

Cookery books? Out! In future , if I want to check on a recipe I shall use the internet. But, then again, I may just keep one or two old favourites: Nigella, Delia and and perhaps my mums very old Bero cookery book.

Non fiction? Autobiographies. Biographies? Out! Out! Out! Except for a few of our very favourites of course.

The largest part of our collection was made up of fiction and some poetry. Did we really read so many stories? Where did the years go? Oh , we waver, perhaps we should read that one again. No! No! No! We can only keep a few . What's more there are new books, and new modern authors to discover. But just look at them all. It seems such a crime to throw these once loved books away. After all there are new younger readers with time to read and discover, and shelves to fill.

But what about all that fiction?

As we continued to sort our books, B decided to make a phone call." I have spoken to Salomé," he told me later. "She'll be happy to receive any fiction books we no longer want at Le Bookshop in Montpellier." It was Salomé who had been so welcoming to me at the Montpellier Bookfair, when my book, 'Because You Were There' was newly published. It would be so nice to give this lovely place, which sells both new and second hand books in English, something back. And so our task had suddenly become much easier. We set about dividing books into three piles: those we could not part with; those we would jettison; and those destined for the English Bookshop. In the end our car was full of books to deliver to Montpellier. We met Manon, at the underground Prefecture car park.