All those lost books...

I grew up in a 4-room house stuffed with books from floor to ceiling, including in the lobby and kitchen. Old collection books and French literature works from my mother, forbidden books by the communists, stuffed in the back of the book shelves, contemporary collections of literature. Once I started to get my own money - my pocket money as a teenager included -, I started to add more and more books to the home collection. The choices depended on my various literary hobbies I went through during my teenage years: history, anthropology, sociology, literature of Central and Eastern Europe. 

But time changed. I moved away from home and very often when I was coming back I was taking more books to read in my new homes, briging to my mom the ones I already finished. Living in tiny places, I was always in need of more space. Then I started to move and travel all over the world but every time I was coming home, I was taking and bringing more books. My knowledge of languages extended and always liked to bring home more samples of world literature for a later reading. 

Four years ago, I discovered and fell in love with Amazon Kindle, where I added around 700 books and keep adding more. I also have books in .pdf and other formats, stored on the drives of my computers.

A couple of days ago, I was considering to visit the memorial house of Anna Seghers in Berlin.I needed to read something of her and in a flash, I had in the front of my eyes the fulll collection of her works in French from my home. At the time when I was at home, I only read some of the stories, but never an entire volume. As I realized that all these books are lost for ever, almost got lost myself into a sea of sadness. And I started to think about all those lost books that I bought but never read and left them in the old country, in a place that it is no more mine and where the traces of my mother are for ever erased.

In the middle of sadness, there is always a ray of light.My New Year Resolution of book worm is to never leave a book not read. From now on, every book I buy will be read days after the purchase. No time for tears and regrets, time for more organized reading.