The mystery of duplicate books in the home library

"If I ask you to buy a book, could you do it today?" This is the message Juan sent to Laia Santís (@vidaentrelibros) when they met again on social media, a few years after meeting at a concert in the heart of Vilafranca. Santís answered with a resounding yes and ran to the bookstore in search of his first suggestion: Ice Brother, by Alicia Kopf (La Otra Editorial). For four months, everyone in her house read the same pages of the same book at the same time and then discussed them.

The story of how they met is told by Laia Santís on Love letters (Column), where she addresses Juan to revisit those early days of their relationship. "And every night, from the bed frame, I waited for the CLING of your message to open the book and read with you. The sound of the message, the tickling in my chest, the jump inside my stomach. For a few minutes I knew you and imagined you in silence, reading the same pages as me, dozens of kilometers away, but almost as if it were the one from the distance, but almost as if it were the one from the distance. The one who became obsessed with polar expeditions and his brother, was the least of it, a pretext, an excuse, a backdrop. bookstagrammer.

When they moved in together, Santís explains, Joan made room for her and the more than 2,000 books that accompanied her. "We have a shelf full of duplicate copies. Two identical books that rest on our private library. Alicia Kopf, Jean-Claude Carrière, Angela Davis, Lucia Berlin... I look at the books on the shelf and think that there began a love story that has multiplied," explains Sant.

Eight years have passed since then, and they have also become parents. The relationship has transformed, with care always at the center: "A relationship must be cultivated with respect and affection, but also with the knowledge that everyone evolves, and that love is knowing how to accept this evolution. There is nothing more beautiful than something that begins among books and ends well. If more shelves are needed, we will build them," she concludes.