Authors Electric

“Do we need to keep all those editions of every book you’ve ever written?” my wife enquired as we stood together in the cellar staring at the pile of satisfyingly tightly sealed plastic crates that she had packed the books in some years before to protect them from possible damp-attack – and to clear a few shelves upstairs. “I could really use those boxes.” “Chuck out books?” I asked, horrified. I mean, that’s my life’s work sealed away in there. “Think you could sell them?” she asked. “Or give them away?” A bit rude, I thought. “I mean,” she snapped open a lid and passed me a book, “do you even know what language that is?” I opened the book in the hope that I would spot the name of a city or something that would give me a clue. It all looked a bit Eastern European, but I couldn’t be sure which bit. “Could be Romanian,” I ventured. “Do we know any Romanians who could confirm that? There’s the Hungarian au pair next door, or the Polish family down ...