A LETTER FROM A READER
Six Women Came For Book Club. They All Asked About The Same Thing.
I run a small book club out of my flat, and I've never written anything like this. But after last Thursday, it seemed easier to write it all down once than to keep answering the same question.
Never mind the book. Where is that basket from?
That was Helen. She's 71, she's been in more book clubs than I've had birthdays, and she runs ours like a military operation. We'd barely opened the wine. She wasn't looking at the book. She was looking at the basket next to my reading chair.
Our book club is six women, from 28 to 71. A retired teacher, a nurse who reads on her night shifts, two sisters who argue about every ending, Helen, and me. We meet once a month, we talk about the book for about twenty minutes and about everything else for two hours.
And every month, they'd sit in my lounge room surrounded by my to-be-read pile.
HOW IT HAPPENS
If you read, you know. The pile grows on its own. A birthday book, a second-hand find, the one a friend insisted you borrow, the three you bought because the cover was pretty.
It starts as a neat little stack beside the armchair. Then it's two stacks. Then one of them leans. You tell yourself it's charming, a sign of a well-read life.
And it is, a bit. But it's also the first thing you see when you sit down, and it makes the whole corner feel unfinished.
WHAT I HAD WRONG
I got it wrong in two ways.
The first was thinking I needed another bookshelf. I didn't have the wall for it, and honestly, the books I'm about to read don't belong on a shelf. They belong right next to me. What I needed was somewhere for the pile to live, close by, that didn't look like a mess.
The second was thinking anything "bookish" would look a bit twee. It doesn't. It's properly illustrated, books and flowers and leaves, the kind of thing you'd choose for a reading corner anyway.
See The Reading PrintsMINE IS BOOKISH GARDEN
It's a quilted basket from Olivia Bennett Melbourne, a small Australian shop that's spent thirteen years making the everyday things in our homes a little lovelier. I put the whole pile in it, spines up, and pushed it next to the armchair.
Read Olivia's story →
The quilting is soft but structured, and the print wraps the whole way round, so it looks lovely from every side of the room.
WHAT HAPPENED AT BOOK CLUB
It lives next to my reading chair now, out in the open, with the pile standing up neatly inside it.
Helen wasn't the only one. By the end of the night, four of them had asked where it was from. One of the sisters took a photo of it. The nurse said she was going to get one for her bedroom, because that's where her pile lives.
In two years of book club, nobody ever asked about the pile on the floor. Not once.
THREE THINGS I HAVE LEARNED SINCE
One. I read more. It sounds silly, but when the pile is somewhere I like looking at, I actually pick from it instead of buying another book.
Two. It arrives a little flat, and that's normal. It's soft fabric, not a rigid box, so it travels compressed. Pop a few books or a throw inside and it holds its shape perfectly straight.
Three. It's printed, not embroidered. I assumed otherwise at first glance. It's a proper high-detail print on quilted fabric, which is exactly why it wipes clean so easily, and with candles and cups of tea around, that matters.
ABOUT THE PRICE
I'll be straightforward about this, because it's the thing that made me hesitate too.
Bookish Garden is $64.95 AUD for the small. It was $219.95 AUD.
My first thought was that it was a lot for a basket. Then I thought about the bookshelf I'd nearly bought instead, which would have cost three times as much and still wouldn't have fitted.
Olivia Bennett Melbourne is having a Moving Sale at the moment, and some of the prints are being retired, so once they're gone, they're gone. If you buy two, you get an extra 10% off.
See The Reading PrintsWHAT I WOULD TELL YOU IF WE WERE FRIENDS
If you were sitting in my lounge room at book club and you asked me about this, here's what I'd say.
Have a look at where your to-be-read pile lives right now. If it's on the floor, on a chair, or wobbling on the edge of the bedside table, this is worth a look.
It's a small thing. But the corner where you read is where you go to be yourself. It deserves to feel lovely.
Six women came for book club. They left talking about my laundry basket.
— Ivy
BOOKISH GARDEN | QUILTED STORAGE BASKET
$219.95 AUD $64.95 AUD
- Soft quilted fabric with an illustrated print of books and flowers, all round
- Printed design that wipes clean easily
- Stands upright once shaped and holds its form beautifully once filled
- Folds flat to store or take with you
- Three sizes, from a small reading pile to a whole library
- Free Australia Delivery
Moving Sale on now. Some prints are being retired, so once they're gone, they're gone.