When you go into someone's house for the first time, do you notice if they have books and then what they are.

[Hekate]

9. What else would I do?

True story: when I first met my husband in 1981 I was a struggling single mother — but I had two fairly large bookcases. While waiting for me to settle the kids, he browsed my collection — long time later he told me how struck he was by my shelf of Japanese literature (in English) — said he’d only ever met one person before me who had read The Makioka Sisters.

For some of us, I guess the books we keep are like perfume or a good wine to the cognoscenti.