An Anonymous Two-Person Book Club

by Mathilda Tönseth (Sweden)

I didn't expect to find New Zealand

My friends back home would not describe me as a greedy person, but they have not seen me at the free book sections in hostels. The worst part about taking two books and leaving none is that I don’t even read when I travel. I’d like to be one of those people who spend insomniatic overnight bus journeys with a book, but I always end up simply leaning my head on the window, observing the fog my breath makes. I think reading plays the same strings in my mind as travelling does and while those tunes create my favourite song, I still crave some silence at the end of the day. As a connoisseur of free books in hostels, I have discovered that New Zealand really stands out in its quality. As you’d expect, they all contain the odd Lord of the Rings book, The Hobbit understandably being the most common one. Additionally, there is an ever-present copy of Twilight, possibly so that when the time comes when we need to burn books to keep warm, it won’t be a struggle to pick the first one. But after that, it starts to get interesting. Classics such as Ulysses and Life of Pi share space with will-be classics like The Kite Runner and The Book Thief. One rainy afternoon, I arrived in the ethereal city of Rotorua. As I was walking to the hostel kitchen that night, I passed the free bookshelf. My eternal love for stories, combined with the guilt of struggling to remember when I last finished a book, made me check that nobody was watching before snatching two interesting titles and returning to my room. The geothermal activity in Rotorua makes it smell like an unfamiliar sea. While the never-ceasing rain was meant to make the smell less intense, I still woke up in the middle of the night with the sulphur stinging faintly in my nose. Reaching down - I was lucky enough to have snagged a bottom bunk - I grabbed one of the books I’d acquired earlier that night. It was a beaten copy of Jane Eyre. As I began reading it, it was abundantly clear that this book had been thoroughly loved. Underlined quotes and comments in the margins bore witness to the previous reader and it quickly started feeling like an anonymous two-person book club. I read for hours that night, finally putting the book down when dim light started seeping into the room. A few days later, I left the still-raining city of Rotorua for the sunny, lakeside town of Taupo. I’d gotten through roughly half of Jane Eyre and I’d started to feel a sort of kinship to its previous reader. The comments were witty and I was completely swept up in the experience when I met a Mexican girl called Michelle. We met in the kitchen and decided to go on a hike together the next morning. I believe that you meet a handful of people in your life who fit you in every possible way; people whose very souls reverberate at the same frequency as your own. Michelle had a soul like that. We did everything together, changing our itineraries to keep travelling together. That went on for almost two months. I was still intrigued by Jane Eyre, but I’d only end up reading late at night when Michelle had fallen asleep. On our last night together, I was repacking my backpack, emptying everything on my bed to get things temporarily organised in the black hole of chaos that is a 60 litre backpack. “Oh my god” Michelle said. I’d never heard her say that before. She picked up Jane Eyre and started flipping through it. “Where did you get this?” “From the free bookshelf in Rotorua” I replied. She looked stunned. “I’d forgotten it in my room there. I emailed the hostel and asked them to send it to me but they said they’d put it in the free shelf and someone had already taken it. I can’t believe it’s here. I’ve read that book so many times, it-” As tears welled up in her eyes, we embraced.