I quote Einstein.  He said, “A table, a chair, a bowl of fruit and a violin; what else does a man need to be happy?”

His simplicity of wants is heartening, and points a way to happiness past an all-too-contemporary focus on an accumulation of ‘things’.  

Except, where the  accumulated ‘things’ are books.  

To that table, chair, bowl of fruit and violin, I would therefore add a book, or books . . . a lot of books.

Some time ago I read a charming story about a group of adult siblings, who, after the death of their father, were pressuring their mother to reduce all that she had surrounded herself with over a lifetime.

“Mum,” they declared almost in unison, “you’ve got so much stuff.  You really should start by getting rid of some of those books.  They’re old.  Too many of them are tattered; they’re falling apart.” 

Grim-faced, and without uttering a word, she pulled herself out of her chair, marched over to one of the bookcases, selected a book at random, hauled it down and opened it to an equally random page and – for a moment or two – made as if to read it.  Roughly, but with respect, she flicked over a few pages and repeated the action.

Suddenly, she snapped it shut, rammed it back in its place on the shelf and – again – marching back to her chair, declared, “Nope!  The stories are all still there.” 

Her library – untroubled – outlived her.