Perhaps it's no coincidence that I've just now rediscovered the comfort of my library which stands several metres away from the house; perhaps my recently spent time there echoes my old habit of living somewhere else every few months or years.
Slowed down by an increase in worldly possessions and a decrease in physical agility, I have for the past twenty-six years been "stuck" at "Riverbend". Anyone who visits me, usually assures me that this is not the worst thing that could've happened to me, but it still occasionally raises the same question Alain de Botton poses in the above video.
I had never given it any thought before but simply followed my feelings or whatever it was that made me pack up my few things and relocate to a new job in a new location - which usually meant another country - whenever the phone rang or a letter arrived offering me such a change.
There have never been many rich philosophers; Alain de Botton is one of them, mainly because he inherited a trust fund worth over £200 million (around $345 million USD) from his late father, Gilbert de Botton, who founded Global Asset Management and sold it to UBS, but also because of the success of his School of Life and the many books he published.
I have read all of his books, although I never contributed to his wealth as I found them all for a couple of dollars at various op-shops, which rather surprised me as I would never have parted with any of them.
In stark contrast, I have lashed out $24.95 or $39.95 or even more than that for some of Bill Bryson's book, as I simply could not wait for them to appear on the shelf of some op-shop. "At Home - A Short History of Private Life" was such a book which I bought as a beautiful hardcover, after which I found two paperback ones in op-shops, one to underline and annonate, sonething I usually do not subject an expensive book to, and the other to give as a present to anyone who may be interested.
The book is almost seven hundred pages thick with over thirty pages of bibliographical listings of his sources. It's quite a learned book but with much of the Bill Bryson wit lacking, which may account for the fact that it is still part of my 'antilibrary' of unread or only partially read books.
Listening to its audiobook may be the answer, but there seemed to be only a preview available on YouTube, read by Bill Bryson himself, until I came across this AI-generated full-length eighteen-hour-long upload.
↑ AI is having an epileptic fit at 56:03 but is back to normal at 1:06:53
So I rolled out my soft futon, that wonderful space-saving Japanese invention, on the floor of my library, laid back and began to listen.
For once at last, my home — well, my library — was making me happy!
