There are three scents in the world that I can’t get enough of: forests, where damp compost mingles with new flowers and eucalypt; churches, with their candlewax and incense; and the smell of a book.

The first thing I do when I start a new book is open it and smell the pages. The older and more loved the book, the better. I started doing this with my Harry Potter books when I was young and re-reading them for the 15th time.

It was a grounding, calming action that immediately began the transition between worlds, the descent through the portal opened up within the page, absorbing me into the ink. The walls around me would shimmer and sway and disappear and in their place would be a castle, a forest glade, a distant planet, a land far far away.

Every day I look at my bookshelf and I get excited about all the books I’m yet to read and I grieve the ones I worry I’ll never get to. I’m filled with angst about the brevity of life and the vastness of the collection of books I want to read – including the ones I don’t yet or may never even know about.

Perhaps a week after I first drafted the above paragraphs about the smell of books, I had the pleasure of seeing Eddie Perfect’s stage rendition of Beetlejuice in Melbourne. The production contains one of my favourite-ever lines:

There are two types of people in this world: new-car-smell people, and old-book-smell people. We are old-book-smell people!

I guess I don’t need to elaborate on which camp I sit in.

Over the course of my writing ‘career’, many people have told me, ‘you shouldn’t write for other people – just write for yourself’.

I don’t hold with this advice in general. Of course, if you want to write purely to immerse yourself in the experience, that’s a wonderful thing. But don’t kid yourself (unless you’re a very, very special unicorn) that anyone is ever going to want to read your journal.

It seems sensible to me that if you want your work to be read, you need to write it with the audience in mind. On the other hand, if you’re writing for enjoyment or self-therapy, write with only your own goal in mind.

For the most part, I prefer to write things that I think might eventually be read by other people – even if they never are, I get more satisfaction from thinking that one day my work might provide interest or enjoyment to others (ironically, most of my creative writing has never seen the light outside my window).

The Next Shelf is a different project, one that is really an exercise in self-indulgence. I really just want to write down my thoughts about the books I am reading and use it as a way to continually practise and develop my writing – and reading – craft, albeit within a narrow format.

I don’t expect that anyone else will want to read this blog, but if, like me, you are obsessed with books and find yourself short of opportunities to discuss books with others who have read the same ones, or if you’re looking for recommendations (or anti-recommendations) then you might perhaps find some value here and I would welcome the company.

Starting this blog at a time when I am both searching for employment and trying to break into freelance writing, rejections and judgements of being ‘not good enough’ form such a core of my daily experience that it’s refreshing to create a space for myself where there is zero intention or expectation of pleasing anyone else and any number of readers above zero will be counted as a gift.

So there it is: this is a place for me to have a one-way discussion about books, although I will be surprised and delighted by any interaction via comments with further thoughts, disagreement or suggestions from anyone with the interest and time to follow along.