The Brooknerian

From the back: an ex-library copy of Lewis Percy , a paperback edition of A Friend from England , and the hardback of Brookner's  essay collection Soundings It's fun to speculate about the previous owners of one's secondhand books. Who were Stu and Jo? It's nice to think of Soundings acting as currency in the transactions between a courting couple. But there's something slightly try-hard about the inscription, and the joke about the year also sounds a little desperate. I wonder whether Jo loved French art too. And why didn't Stu keep her gift? And Rebecca Ime - who was she? An unusual name. And why did she get rid of A Friend from England ? Didn't she like it? Were its messages too close to home? The Lewis Percy was withdrawn from one of the libraries I used to work in. I might even have stamped one or two of those dates.

The other photographs were of lesser interest, mainly postcards of his travels, souvenirs from which the original attraction had faded, and reproductions of favourite paintings, only some of which he had seen... Anita Brookner, The Next Big Thing , ch. 9 It always surprises me that museums and galleries still sell postcards. Why do we buy them? Our own photos, on our smartphones, are often superior. Postcards not invariably get the colour or the lighting wrong. And we certainly don't send postcards any more. When was the last time I sent a postcard? I used, on my travels, to write them assiduously. And when was the last time I or indeed anyone received one? Answers on a postcard, please. And yet I still buy them. I even collect them. I use them as bookmarks. I like handling them. They're real, solid; they retain something of the magic of foreign climes. I like to take them out and sort them by artist or by gallery. They form for me a little private autobiography. I fi...