Poor Lazarus and Mr Pink-Whistle make quite the odd couple. But in my home they sit there side-by-side, staring down at me from the bookshelf everyday. I received both books as gifts in 1980. They’re almost as old as me (though not yet quite as worn).
‘Poor Lazarus’ is a children’s book of parables given to me on my first communion by a priest who was a family friend. Enid Blyton’s ‘Adventures of Mr Pink-Whistle’ came from my sister, Dympna, for Christmas that year.
Both bear personal inscriptions to me. Accordingly, the pages and words carry a unique weight of sentiment that is special only to me. Books possess that unique characteristic of connection, transcending space and place; the bonding giving life to the binding.
Today both books sit on shelves with other books – photographic, historical, political, social, academic, literary, spiritual, sporting, entertainment.
There are some new novels, some old annuals; some politically incorrect, some politically intelligent; large reference sources, small religious histories; some second-hand, some second-rate; some as yet unread, some so repeatedly digested that I could regurgitate large chunks without ever again opening the broken spines.
I have a special ‘go-to’ shelf to keep reminding me that you only find knowledge through books, whereas wisdom is only found through living. John O’Donohue’s collection is like a comfort blanket to make sense of the world in that regard. In particular, his wondrous spiritual insight of Anam Chara – joining Christian and Celtic learning – guides light into the darkest days, clearing the moments when understanding is most fogged. It’s the one book that I occasionally share, and sometimes gift, to people who'd appreciate it.
Last week on UTV news there was a lovely feature about my old primary school, St Comgall’s of Antrim, which recently won an award as the region’s top performing primary for developing reading skills.
My siblings and I were lucky to be be given a great love for books by Mummy and Daddy at home. But equally, in the 1970s and 1980s – under the consecutive leadership of Master O’Connor, Mr O’Kane and Mr Cush – there was always a great emphasis on reading books at St Comgall’s. It was always a prize to get picked for going out to the education board’s mobile library because it meant selecting the books being borrowed for the classroom until the library next visited the car park (and, truth be told, it was often a fairly selfish operation).
Books stoke the fires of our imagination with the learned mining and creative coals of other minds, and they do it tangibly in a way that we can literally feel and touch and bookmark. There’s really nothing like the smell of opening up wide a good new book, or breathing in the musty history of pages that have been sleeping closed for years or even decades.
It’s both remarkable and encouraging to see reports for 2018 suggesting that book sales rose last year, with more money spent and slightly more books bought. Over 190 million books were sold in Britain, with a turnover in excess of £1.6 billion.
And yet it’s a great shame that there is an ever-smaller number of really good bookshops now surviving, local independent gems like No Alibis through to bigger chains like Waterstones or Eason.
I remember spending many work lunchtimes in the early 1990s, gathering myself into a quiet corner of Waterstones cavernous former shop on Royal Avenue with a couple of big books and half-an-hour to kill as calming music filled the background. It was like an oasis from the external chaos. Many others did likewise. Or if you wanted more alternative options, it was round the corner to Just Books in Gresham Street.
The Foyle Books second-hand shop on Magazine Street in Derry fulfilled the same purpose for me in following years. Like Ollivander’s magical wand shop in Harry Potter, you could always count on Art or Ken pinpointing a fabulous first edition or poking through the dusty upper shelves to find a special suitable nugget. You could then stand and read through possible selections for as long as you wanted without once getting a sideways glance. No obligations.
In order to keep books being printed, we need to keep buying the real thing and supporting our bookshops – especially the local independents.
Our young people deserve the opportunity to have old books coming alive in their hands just as much as they will keep learning from new technology up in ‘the cloud’. And they deserve to read the privileged memories of a childhood inscribed with love, that still looks down over them from a bookshelf in later life.
