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My Book Collection Was Quietly Turning My Flat into a Library

perry213888

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1^# 大中小發表於 2026-8-21 18:23 只看該作者

My Book Collection Was Quietly Turning My Flat into a Library

I’ve always been a reader. Not the kind who casually picks up a paperback at the airport and leaves it on the plane. I’m the kind who walks into a second-hand bookshop “just to look” and walks out with three novels, a poetry collection, and a guilty expression. I love the weight of a book in my hands, the smell of old pages, the quiet promise of a story I haven’t met yet. Over the years, this love has translated into a lot of books. A lot.
When I moved to Hong Kong six years ago, I brought two suitcases and a small box of my most treasured reads. I told myself I’d be selective going forward. No more impulse buys. No more “I’ll read it someday” purchases. That lasted about three weeks. Hong Kong has an incredible second-hand book scene, and I discovered every single one of them. Then there were the onMOD sales, the book fairs, the little stalls in Wan Chai that sold English novels for a fraction of their original price. I was helpless.
Fast forward to last year, and my one-bedroom flat in Sai Ying Pun had reached a critical point. Every surface was covered in books. The bookshelf — a tall, sturdy thing I’d bought second-hand — was double-stacked, with paperbacks wedged horizontally on top of vertical rows. There were books on my desk, books on the kitchen counter, books in the bathroom, books under the bed, books stacked in teetering towers beside the sofa. My friends joked that I lived in a library, which was flattering until I realised I couldn’t find my keys one morning because they were buried under a pile of Murakami novels.
The real problem wasn’t just the clutter. It was the guilt. Every time I looked at the piles, I felt a mix of affection and overwhelm. These weren’t just objects — they were memories, ideas, versions of myself I’d grown through. I couldn’t bear to part with them. But I also couldn’t keep living in a space that felt more like a storage room than a home. I needed a solution that honoured my love of reading without sacrificing my ability to walk from the sofa to the kitchen without stepping on a novel.
A friend suggested I look into mini storage. At first, I resisted. The phrase conjured images of cold, industrial lockers and people hoarding things they’d never use again. But she explained that it didn’t have to be that way. Mini storage, she said, was just a way to keep the things you loved safe when your home couldn’t hold them all. It wasn’t about giving up — it was about making space.
I started researching options, and that’s when I found a company called Spacebox. What appealed to me was the simplicity. I didn’t have to rent a van or haul heavy boxes across the city. They sent me flat-pack boxes, I filled them with books at my own pace, and a team came to collect everything. Each box was labelled and logged in their app, so I could see exactly what I had in storage. If I ever wanted a specific book back, I just requested it and it would arrive at my door within a couple of days.
The process of choosing which books to keep and which to store was surprisingly emotional. I picked out the ones I reached for regularly — my favourite novels, the poetry I read on quiet Sunday mornings, the cookbooks I actually used. The rest — the academic texts from university, the series I’d already finished, the beautiful hardcovers I loved but rarely opened — went into boxes. I wrote careful labels on each one: “Fiction — to re-read,” “Reference,” “Sentimental favourites.” When the movers carried the boxes out of my flat, I felt a pang of loss, but also a surprising sense of relief.
The transformation was immediate. My flat felt bigger, brighter, calmer. The bookshelf still stood tall, but now it held only the books that mattered most to me right now. The desk was clear. The kitchen counter was for cooking again. I could walk from room to room without performing an obstacle course. It was like my home had taken a deep breath.
What surprised me most was how little I missed the stored books. I knew they were safe, and I could access them whenever I wanted. A few months later, I had a sudden craving to reread an old favourite — a novel I’d stored away. I opened the app, found the box, and requested it. Two days later, it was in my hands. The whole experience felt like receiving a gift from my past self.
Mini storage didn’t cure my book-buying habit, and honestly, I don’t want it to. But it did teach me something important: loving something doesn’t mean it has to surround you at all times. My books are still mine, just spread across two places — the ones I need now, and the ones I’ll need again someday. My flat finally feels like a home, not a library. And for a reader like me, that’s the best ending I could have asked for.

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