As I step over the threshold of another new place
I seek my host’s identity via his bookcase.
Be this the home of a new acquaintance, or a friend I know well
A man’s collection of books explains more than hearsay can tell.
They say that: “the eyes are the window to a man’s mind”
But the novels and volumes say so much more, you will find.

I scan the shelves and I take in the scene
To solve the puzzle, to understand what it means.
Displayed before me is a passport of this person’s life
A chronology of a journey of both good times and strife.
Also here are the paths that have are yet to be tread
The unstamped visas of books still to be read.

Paperbacks well thumbed by Frederick Forsyth and Agatha Christie
From holiday reading thrillers to whodunit murder mystery
Light hearted facts astound in this year’s Schott’s Miscellany
Guinness Book of Records impresses and whiles away afternoons rainy.
These books are everyday pleasures, but mere pawns on this chessboard
They squeeze in at the sides, supporting the bigger lords.

Far grander, and at an eye catching height
The classics by authors whose pens wielded might
Hardy, Austin, Dickens, Shakespeare (with added appendage).
Compulsory school reading once resented, now recommended.
”Look what I have read, you really must I insist!
No knowledge of Chaucer, why take the risk?”

There are thick books and serious books, books of great breeding
Books of vast length that would take months of slow reading.
Some are far too large for our hurried lives
Best wait ‘til retirement when we’ll have much more time.
And then when we read them we’ll regret we did not do so before
For the knowledge we needed when younger, is of no use anymore.

We travel the world seeking knowledge and answers
Asking questions, debating and testing the senses
And yet so much of life is right here in our bookcases
Pages of emotion of facts and of places.
So show who you are via the books in your home,
But read and absorb what you already own.