Shelf Esteem is a weekly measure of the books on the shelves of writers, editors, and other word lovers, as told to Emily M. Keeler. This week’s shelf belongs Jowita Bydlowska, the author of the bestselling memoir Drunk Mom. Jowita’s books are in her west Toronto home, which she shares with her partner and fellow writer, Russell Smith, and their son Hugo. When I arrived, Jowita was defending her home against a particularly stinky raccoon that had decided to occupy the balcony overlooking her backyard, but almost as soon as she started describing her favourite books, we both forgot about the smelly vermin outside.
I tried to not clean this up on purpose, because this is how it naturally is. Russell has his own bookshelf upstairs. Some of these are ours, a lot of them are books by friends, which is fantastic, because so many of them are signed. They used to be alphabetically organized, and then Hugo happened. So his books are slowly moving up and up, and spreading like mold. It’s gonna be kid’s books everywhere.
There’s one kids book that I’m obsessed with. I wrote about how obsessed I am with this book. I Want My Hat Back is the best. It’s about death. Hugo’s not crazy about it.
It’s funny, Lucky Jim is Russell’s favourite book. We’ve been together for 11 years, and so for 11 years he’s been trying to get me to read this book. It’s become sort of something I can’t do on principle. I kind of want to—I know I should, I actually desperately want to read it, but I’m just not going to. Maybe I’ll read it secretly. It’s sad, because ten years ago, when he gave it to me—I just have a problem with me suggesting what I should read. Even though he’s my partner. I’ve read a lot of books that he’s suggested, but that one, I just can’t.
Shelf Esteem runs every Tuesday.
