Author: Audrey Niffenegger
My first ever graphic novel. It appeared in a review in The Star, and so made it to my wishlist. After a meeting in KLCC, I headed straight to Kinokuniya to acquire this, and I am very glad I did.
The story is about a woman who comes across a bookmobile in the middle of the night. The librarian is Mr Openshaw, who appears to know her on sight and keeps the bookmobile open 'from dusk till dawn'. As she steps into the bookmobile, she finds row upon row of all the books - all the STUFF - that she has read in her whole life. Unfinished reads appear as half-empty tomes, while books borrowed from libraries appear with their library stickers intact.
SPOILER ALERT!!!
Mesmerized, she tells Mr Openshaw that she wishes to work with him, but he tells her it is impossible. Back in the real world, she gets a day job as a librarian, and eventually works her way up to become the Library Director, when she stumbles across the bookmobile for the last time. Once again she pleads with Openshaw for a position, and again he refuses. As she reaches her home, where she is surrounded by books and little else, she decides to end her life.
When she wakes up, she finds herself in the middle of a large library - READERS' HEAVEN! She sees Mr Openshaw, who gladly receives her as a librarian. When she asks to see her own collection, though, she is told that her books are no longer accessible.
"Only those who are alive can be Readers," Openshaw tells her. As a new librarian, she is assigned as Custodian of a new Reader - a young girl who is learning to read, and her first finished book is ready to be catalogued.
I found the idea of a bookmobile with your own personal reading collection immensely poetic and romantic, but to lose it after you die? Not so heavenly after all. However, judging from Mr Openshaw's habits, Custodians do get to read their Reader's collections. As long as they have the same tastes in books, that should not be such a problem.
If I had my own bookmobile, my Custodian would notice that my reading rate increases dramatically during my maternity leaves, and it would be filled with all sorts of material and paraphernalia. I remember reading anything and everything I could lay my hands on, including children's books and manuals. He or she would also note that I have lately acquired a habit of reading soppy romance novels when my husband is away and I am feeling lonesome. Either I am pining for him or pining for my youthful years as a teenager besotted with tall, dark and handsome fictional characters.
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