I was going to write an article about my most recently acquired books only to discover that I have lost one of them. I thought that through the years of changing flats and even countries I managed to shake off the little (well, I don’t really know what he/she looks like) sprite that resided in my Mum’s flat and delighted in misplacing various things only to let me find them back in the place I checked multiple times previously. I am sure you are familiar with the creature. I have not encountered it during my stay in the US (possibly due to Visa problems) and have not had the pleasure in the UK until now. Ha! Maybe the creature dwells in my ‘pre-US’ book collection. Maybe it is its guardian.

Two weeks ago, as I was walking up our street I noticed a couple of plastic boxes on the side of the path filled with books, bags and some articles of clothing. I will never pass a book, let alone a pile of books, without examining it first. This was an interesting collection that allowed me to assess the owner of the books based on a number of speech/linguistics and psychology books that were there. First I spotted Zadie Smith’s The Autograph Man, a title I have not heard of and author I have not yet read, and picked it up. Then I saw Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita, book everyone has heard of and I have not yet read. We were reading Pale Fire at university and so I skirted the notorious title. Seeing it on the kerbside available for free, I took it for a sign that the time has come for me to read it and I took it home.

I placed both books on the radiator for a 72-hour long quarantine and later found them their respective places in my bookshelves. Or so I thought… I have organised my bookshelves by the country of origin of the author. It sounds more exciting than it is. I have British authors nicely together, US, Irish, and other authors in English. Then my Slovak and Czech, both original and translations; and a tiny pile of French.

When I came to collect the books for this article’s photoshoot I found Zadie nicely snug between Diana Athill and Jane Austen but Vladimir is not to be found. Neither next to William Faulkner, nor beside Raymond Chandler. I am not sure what the spite’s intention is but Lolita has stolen the limelight of this article by not being there. Four paragraphs in and I have not mentioned the other books that are in the photo, the books that actually took the trouble to get found on my Brobdingnagian shelves.

The other books that were to be the subject of this article, had Lolita behaved, are two charity shop finds: Marina Lewicka’s A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian that had the lady at the till repeating how hard she laughed while reading it; and Bernard MacLaverty’s Midwinter Break. The last book is a gift that came announced through the post: Henry James’ Washington Square.

I am currently leaning towards James being the next book on my bedside table but should Lolita reappear she may take precedence just so I can keep an eye on her. Well, should the sprite be the sprite of my childhood years, I will find Lolita grinning at me snuggled up to the Intruder in the Dust in an hour or so.