The bookcase of Claire Messud and the literary critic James Wood. “Owning books has been only intermittently of importance to me. At one time, collecting books that were my own, feeling I had my own intellectual and literary trajectory visible before me, seemed necessary and meaningful,” Messud said. “But now, in midlife, I feel that my tendency to acquire books is rather like someone smoking two packs a day: it’s a terrible vice that I wish I could shuck. I love my books, and with all their dog-ears and under- linings they are irreplaceable; but I sometimes wish they’d just vanish. To be weighed down by things—books, furniture—seems somehow terrible to me. It’s important to be ready to move on.”

The bookcase of Claire Messud and the literary critic James Wood. “Owning books has been only intermittently of importance to me. At one time, collecting books that were my own, feeling I had my own intellectual and literary trajectory visible before me, seemed necessary and meaningful,” Messud said. “But now, in midlife, I feel that my tendency to acquire books is rather like someone smoking two packs a day: it’s a terrible vice that I wish I could shuck. I love my books, and with all their dog-ears and under- linings they are irreplaceable; but I sometimes wish they’d just vanish. To be weighed down by things—books, furniture—seems somehow terrible to me. It’s important to be ready to move on.”

Notes

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