“You have some lovely books," she said. "I like the one with the pictures of polar bears."
"The books with words too tricky?"
She released a strangled laugh.
"Would you care to explain the system?" Turner stared at the shelves.
Matty moved in front of him and pointed. "They're sorted by color."
"Ah." Dear God.
"And by size."
"Mmm." Turner felt his mouth start to twitch. "It didn't occur to you to shelve them alphabetically by author name or even title?"
"Well, yes, but no."
"The thing is, you have so many. I organized one boxful only to find the next box wrecked what I'd done so I thought they'd look nicer if all the same color spines sat together. I tried to follow the colors of the spectrum. Look, the books go up and down in waves."
He'd noticed. It made him feel seasick.”
―
Barbara Elsborg,
The Small Print
