Stumbling over books is less painful than Lego, though much more blasphemous. That is usually what my life gets reduced to on library clean­‐up days, during vacations. In the morning, the two boys would report to duty, and be given a minute long lecture on their responsibilities, and how I, the overworked mother, slogs to keep the place clean. Two nodding heads scurry across the house collecting stray books that magically find their way under the sofa, on the dining table, and in all sorts of drawers hiding between toys, socks and worse. I sigh, watching them run about, as I quietly slip out to do my round of grocery shopping, haggling with the vendor or, sometimes, a cup of solitary coffee just for sanity’s sake.

Every time I step back in, fantasising about neat bookshelf with books lined up in some comprehensible fashion, I trip and fall. In front…