Shall We Call it Bokstädning?
It’s Saturday, I’m in the middle of something. My plan was to take a wander to a local island, but with the winds blustery and the sea angry, I decided to leave it for a better morning. So instead, I turned to something practical. The Swedes have a word, döstädning (death-cleaning), the idea of preparing for the end by sorting through one’s possessions, gradually loosening one’s hold on the cocoon that has carried you through life for goodness knows how long.
But I am thinking about something slightly different: the idea of book-cleaning, of letting go of books that no longer have a place on the shelves. So let’s call it bokstädning — book-cleaning.
I began with the fat ones. 1001 Walks You Must Experience Before You Die was the first to go. Realistically, I am not going to manage them now. I have cancer, and I live on Scotland’s west coast. I am not going to reach the Bayfield Sea and Ice Caves in Wisconsin or walk the Tunnel of Nine Turns Trail in Taiwan, so that book must go.
The next hefty volume was 1001 Children’s Books You Must Read Before You Grow Up. I let it go reluctantly. There are good ones in there — To Kill a Mockingbird, for example. Funny enough, I once asked my GP about his favourite book, and that was his answer; he had studied it in school and never forgotten it. There are also some unusual inclusions, like Memoirs of a Basque Cow and Who Does This Kid Take After? But I found myself wondering who decides what belongs in these collections. Believe it or not, Pinocchio isn’t even listed, which surprised me. I have always loved that story — to me it is a child’s version of the Prodigal Son.
I was about to add The Oxford Book of Essays, edited by John Gross, to the pile, but on the inside back cover I noticed I had written “468.” I turned to page 468 and stopped. I had almost thrown away something precious. It was J. B. Priestley’s The Toy Farm. When I did my MA in Creative Writing, this was the essay that changed things for me. It led me toward writing essays myself.
The essay begins with a simple object: a toy farm. At first, it seems harmless, a small and innocent pastime that offers a gentle pleasure. But slowly, the toy farm becomes something more. The protagonist begins to find comfort and control in this miniature world, a sense of order he cannot find elsewhere. The balance between reality and imagination gradually shifts. More and more emotional energy flows into the imagined world rather than the real one, and what began as harmless diversion becomes something closer to dependency.
As the story progresses, the retreat into the toy world becomes troubling. The protagonist withdraws further from reality, and the imaginative space that once brought comfort begins to isolate him. The essay shows how easily a place of refuge can turn into a trap, and how fantasy, when it becomes a substitute for life rather than a relief from it, can diminish rather than enrich us.
And that realisation made me pause. Bokstädning is not only about letting go of books; it is about recognising which ones still speak to you, which ones still carry meaning. Some books must go, but others remain because they hold a part of who you have been and who you are still becoming. And for now, that feels reason enough to keep them.
Image by Copilot