Just as we judge books by their covers, we judge people by their books, writes Emily Hourican who muses on the worthy works we keep on show versus the guilty pleasures stashed under our pillows…
“When Marilyn Monroe was photographed reading Ulysses, we all saw a different side of her: Marilyn-the-misunderstood-intellectual became as much a trope as Marilyn-the-insouciant-sex-bomb.” Image: Clare Meredith
I can’t get shops to take my second-hand books for anything. And this despite the fact that, because I occasionally review books for this newspaper, I get sent many, many brand spanking new ones. These are not dog-eared copies of Nausea or The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, they are the ‘thriller of the summer,’ the Book of the Year, the ‘new Sally Rooney…’.
Still no one wants them. Charity shops and second-hand bookshops are full. And yet Nick Cave can offload 2,000 books and people come clamouring. The manager of the Oxfam shop in Hove, UK, where Nick’s books were donated, said the reaction was “absolutely mad”, with fans coming from other towns and cities to buy his old paperbacks, the most popular of which have been scribbled in by Cave – responses to what he’s read, thoughts, doodles, maybe reminders to self to buy milk. Whatever it is, the fans are in.