It's not hoarding if it's books
I 've always loved bookshelves. From racks built into rooms and hanging ones that you mount on the wall to standard standalone structures and customized fancy ones -- bookshelves have forever been a constant in my life. The bookworm aesthetic trend currently prevalent on social media of course portrays those shelves bearing other things along with books, like pretty plants and quirky showpieces, but that has always been the scene in most middle-class Bengali homes where, if you have space on a shelf, you put something there. However, the latter is less bookworm aesthetic and more "where else will I keep this collection of weird knick-knacks, small-framed photographs, cassettes and ye olde two-in-one cassette player?" When we moved to the new house, Ma got a carpenter to make us a proper bookshelf. Later on, as our hoard of books grew, we added narrower bookshelves to either side of it -- aesthetic yet functional. I moved out for a few years and used to store my books on ...
