The Aardvark Blog

The impossibility of there being too many books ...
16/02/2024

On Wednesday night I went to a nearby village to buy some books from a lady whose husband had died a few years ago. I am accustomed to being impressed by the variety of people's interests, but in this case he seemed to have been a brilliant musician, a superb almost professional standard cook, an extremely accomplished potter and something of an expert on boats and boat building. A well-spent life with all the books you could hope to have to reflect all his different enthusiasms.

Returning home to Aardvark Towers I felt a degree of shame at the lack of variety in my shelves - lots of art books, poetry books and books on France, USA, Venice, Greece etc - but no books on chemistry or astrology, or growing alfalfa. A few music reference books and books on composers, but no books on composition. No Dictionary of National Biography, Grove Music Dictionary or OED: truly a paltry showing. Because it is simply impossible for a home to contain too many books, on visiting stately homes it is to the library I dash for my next dose of bibliophilia. There are simply no more perfect places than the Wren Library in Cambridge or Dr Marsh's Library in Dublin; or for that matter Trinity College Library with the magisterial book of Kells and so many examples of fine Irish writing.

Given my peculiar bibliopathology it was perhaps inevitable that I would land up in Brampton Bryan - once owned by the 2nd Earl of  Oxford and Mortimer, whose immense book collections became the basis for the British Library. And we are a mere 60 miles from Broadway, once the home of Sir Thomas Phillips' extraordinary library; a mere 32 miles from Attingham Park with its not one but two fantastic library buildings; 30 miles in another direction will take you to Dudmaston which has a famed library still. I am starting to come up with my own new theory of book lines - a development of our own dear Alfred Watkins 'Ley Lines' - ancient psychocognative rivers that connect libraries of significance.

At Aardvark we send out books all round the world, and customers who come in travel here from all corners of Britain and beyond. Books are the greatest of travellers and the greatest of travelling companions.