Page 221 - The Midnight Library

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White floorboards, T V, wood-burner, electric piano, two new laptops on

charge, a mahogany chest on which perched an ornate chess set , nicely
stacked bookshelves. A lovely guitar resting in the corner. Nora recognised
the model instantly as an electro-acoustic ‘Midnight Satin’ Fender Malibu.
She had sold one during her last week working at String eor y.

ere were photos in frames dotted around the living room. Kids she
didn’t know with a woman who looked like Ash – presumably his sister. An
old photo of her deceased parents on their wedding day, and one of her and
Ash getting married. She could see her brother in the background. A photo

of Plato. And one of a baby, presumably Molly.
She glanced at the books. Some yoga manuals, but not the second-hand
ones she owned in her root life. Some medical books. She recognised her
copy of Bertrand Russell’s History of Wester n Philosophy, along with Henr y

David oreau’s Walden, both of which she’d owned since university. A
familiar Principles of Geology was also there. ere were quite a few books
on oreau. And copies of Plato’s Republic and Hannah Arendt’s e Origins
of Totalitarianism, which she did own in her root life, but not in these

editions. Intellectual-looking books by people like Julia Kristeva and Judith
Butler and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. ere were a lot of works on
Eastern philosophy that she had never read before and she wondered if she
stayed in this life, and she couldn’t see why not, whet her there was a way to

read them all before she had to do any more teaching at Cambridge.
Novels, some Dickens, e Bell Jar, some geeky pop-science books, a few
music books, a few parenting manuals, Nature by Ralph Waldo Emerson
and Silent Spring by Rachel Carson, some stuff on climate change, and a

large hardback called Arctic Dreams: Imagination and Desire in a Norther n
Landscape.
She had rarely, if ever, been this consistently highbrow. is was clearly
what happened when you did a Master’s degree at Cambridge and then went

on sabbatical to write a book on your favourite philosopher.
‘You’re impressed by me,’ she told the dog. ‘You can admit it.’
ere was also a pile of music songbooks, and Nora smiled when she saw
that the one on top was the Simon & Garfunkel one she had sold to Ash the

day he had asked her out for a coffee. On the coffee table there was a nice
glossy hardback book of photographs of Spanish scener y and on the sofa
there was something called e Encyclopedia of Plants and Flowers.