Book Tours: Samantha van Buuren's Collection

September 21, 2023

Interviews

Literature

Nesha Ruther

Writer at Bond & Grace

As a child, nothing matched the feeling of going to the library and coming home with far too many books. As an adult, Samantha van Buuren recreated that feeling by building a library of her own. Less a hobby, and more of a saving grace, Samantha’s book collection was a product of the COVID-19 lockdowns. “It was something to help with the depression of being locked away from everybody,” she says.

Like many others during the pandemic, Samantha turned to social media to connect with friends and loved ones. She began posting photos of her collection on Instagram, and slowly amassed a sizable following, (she now has 13,000 followers.) In doing so, she became part of a community of bookstagrammers passionate about collecting. “Once I started my Instagram I found so many friends and people to talk to. [Posting photos of my collection] became something I do every day.”

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While Samantha began collecting books, her husband turned to his own lockdown hobby, woodworking. To keep the both of them sane, he built large, beautiful bookshelves to store her rapidly growing library. Having her husband support her in this way, means the world to Samantha, and has helped her distinguish her collection from others online.“I have to give credit to the bookshelves. There are tons of accounts on Instagram that all have the same or similar books, and they’re all beautiful, but nobody has my bookcases. My husband built these with his own hands,” she says proudly. “He also built me a book trolley with wheels on the bottom that match [the shelves]. This room, it's just a small extra space in our house but he let me take it over with all my books. It’s this library, these shelves that make me different.”

When it comes to sourcing her collection, Samantha’s main providers of books are Waterstones and The Folio Society. “I started collecting those as my most expensive, luxurious books. At the start, I wouldn’t spend more than 20 pounds. Now I have spent a lot more than that on books,” she laughs. “One day I saw The Folio Society had a collection of Andrew Lang fairy tales and I knew I had to have them,” she says. “I love fairy tales, especially the originals because they’re dark and convoluted.”

“One of my favorite fairy tales is from the Grimm brothers, and it's called The Golden Bird,” Samantha recounts. “It’s about a prince and a gardener who are both vying for a princess's hand in marriage. There’s also a fox that gives advice and in the end, the fox asks them to cut off his feet and bury them so he can turn into a person. It’s gruesome and fantastic,” she laughs.

Perhaps it was the mayhem and darkness of the original fairy tales that spurred Samantha’s love for her next favorite genre, horror. Like many readers, Samantha’s relationship with books is closely tied to her mental health. In the same way that fairy tales can serve as a form of escapism, horrors’ gothic overtones can put her own fears into a different context, one in which the monsters are tangible and external. “I struggle with anxiety and depression,” she says candidly. “And I’ve found that if I’m struggling, horror helps. I know it sounds strange, but having anxiety that there might be something waiting in the dark when I turn off my light is much better than anxiety about life.”

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Samantha is not alone in this sentiment. While horror is only now getting the respect it is due as part of the literary canon, for decades writers have been using horror tropes to form powerful, evocative narratives of mental turmoil. No one has accomplished this more skillfully than one of Samantha’s favorite writers, Shirley Jackson. “The Haunting of Hill House immediately comes to mind as one of my favorite books,” Samantha says. “It's an amazing book, I get goosebumps every time.”

Another favorite of Samantha’s collection is Mark Z. Danielewski’s House of Leaves. A multiple-layer deep work of metafiction that uses a mysterious manuscript, footnotes, an appendix, and more to unravel the layers of the story. “It's about this man who finds an essay about a house. And so the story is told through the essay, the main body of the book, and footnotes that explain the man’s thoughts as he’s reading.”

“The book gets crazy because the footnotes are squares in the middle of the page, there are upside-down and backward bits that you need a mirror to read. There are pages with words scattered everywhere,” Samantha says. “It can put people off because it’s so strange but I think it’s fantastic,” she says enthusiastically.

The same can be said for H.P Lovecraft, who is represented on Samantha’s shelves with a beautiful collection from The Folio Society. Depending on the angle at which it is held, the book’s cover shifts hauntingly from purple to green.

In addition to The Folio Society and Waterstones, Samantha is a loyal patron of Goldsboro Books which specializes in signed first editions. She also has a subscription to HarperCollins’ The Locked Library. “It's a monthly science fiction and fantasy subscription,” Samantha explains. “I get it once a month and I love it.”

With so many books in her collection, and more regularly coming in, Samantha relies on a categorization system that combines alphabetical and numerical order with her own personal passions and sense of decor. “I organize alphabetically by author surname and chronologically for books in a series. But I also have special shelves. For example, I have one shelf for all my Folio Society books, one for books with sprayed edges, and one just for red books because I’ve got this gorgeous vase of an anatomical heart, so I have all my red books to go with that. I have a Greek mythology shelf because I’m obsessed with that at the moment. I think I need a science fiction one next,” she says proudly.

Like her shelves, Samantha’s collecting practice goes through different phases and obsessions. “Over the past year I’ve really fallen in love with Science Fiction,” she says. “I started with Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? and I loved it, so I bought a ton of Science Fiction classics that I’m working through. I’m currently reading Flowers for Algernon and I’m in love.”

Her shelf of Greek mythology adaptations began with the widely beloved, Circe by Madeline Miller. “I then read Ariadne by Jennifer Saint and I loved it. I’ve got all three of her books now, signed editions. From there I branched out to The Heroines by Laura Shepperson, and Stone Blind by Natalie Haynes. I’ve recently read Clytemnestra by Costanza Casati and I loved it,” Samantha says.

In ancient Greek mythology, Samantha has found a surprising new source of confidence and empowerment. “I’ve loved all these books and I think it's because the women in Greek mythology get treated really badly, but they always find a way to fight and live their lives anyway. It’s so empowering and it feels good to see them overcome such awful things.”

‍Stone Blind, which is an interpretation of Medusa’s story, brings the tragedy of Medusa to the forefront and investigates it with feminist overtones. “Medusa is actually my favorite character in Greek mythology,” Samantha shares. “She is painted as a monster but she’s not, she was a victim. The story is really unfair, but without spoiling it, the ending Natalie Haynes gives is very satisfying”

While some people’s collections are composed entirely of books they’ve read and loved, Samantha uses hers as an avenue toward new discoveries. “I love book subscriptions because I like to be surprised when books show up at my door. I try not to read the synopsis or anything so I can be surprised. In that way I’ve read books I wouldn’t necessarily have read if it wasn’t for my collection,” she says. “And if you don’t like the books, they’re still beautiful signed editions, so you can sell them at least what you’ve paid for the subscription, sometimes more, so they can be quite a good investment as well.”

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For Samantha, reading and collecting are not two distinct hobbies, but different avenues of exploring the thing she loves, reading. “It makes me a little sad to think of a book sitting on a shelf never getting to be read,” she says. “I have nothing against people who do that with their books, but for me, I won’t buy a book unless I actually plan on reading it, especially the illustrated ones.”

Still, especially with a young child, it is not lost on Samantha the many risks that can befall a beautiful edition. “I’ve got book protectors to put around the special ones for when I’m reading so they won't get damaged,” she says.

While it was the isolation of the pandemic that prompted Samantha’s collecting, it has been the community of passionate readers that has continued it. “If you ignore the statistics and the rubbish algorithm, then Instagram is a wonderful place to be,” she says. “I’ve got so many friends in the Bookstagram Community who have so many different ways of showing their love for books. “Some collect books, some sell books, some of them don’t collect special editions, just paperbacks and they’ll post reviews. It’s a lovely place to be if you’re a book lover.” Bookstagram has not only given Samantha a vibrant new community but opportunities she would not have had otherwise. “I can’t say who because I want them to invite me back, but a certain publisher has even invited me to see sneak previews of their new collections because of my Instagram,” she says.

Some of her internet friendships have even grown into in-person relationships. One particular follower came to England from the US to visit Samantha and her family. “I’ve had a friend from America come visit me. She has an Instagram account and we’ve been friends for ages. She messaged me to say she was coming to England and wanted to pop by. I was glad she couldn’t hear the little scream I let out when I read that. She came with her husband and we had a fantastic time. We sat in the library and talked about books and I took them to my favorite bookshop.”

“During the Pandemic, Bookstagram made me feel less alone. I'd just had my son and I couldn’t leave the house to have a catch-up with friends or take him to see his grandparents, so that time was quite isolating, but Bookstagram definitely eased that period,” Samantha says. “There are so many diverse people and so many diverse books that I probably wouldn’t have read otherwise. It definitely broadened my reading and my community horizons.”

As Samantha grows her collection, she hopes to continue developing her knowledge of certain genres like Science Fiction. She also keeps her eye on upcoming releases and gets on the preorder list so she can add new books to her collection and complete the series she’s already started.

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“One book I can’t stop thinking about is The Temple of Fortuna by Elodie Harper. She has a series called The Wolf’s Den and this is the final book in the trilogy. It comes out in November. I’m dying. Usually, when I get a new book I’ll finish the one I’m currently reading before I dive into it, but when that one gets to my house, I’m switching,” she laughs.

Because her collection is virtual as well as physical, Samantha will often organize her TBR pile by readying her Instagram posts before she has read the book. Next up on the list is Bookstagram’s star author, Sarah J. Maas, and her book House of Earth and Blood. “[Sarah J. Maas] is amazing,” Samantha says. “And this book is supposed to be a little less YA and more adult, so I’m looking forward to reading that one.”

For those looking to begin collecting, Samantha recommends The Folio Society as a good place to start for securing beautiful editions, no matter your preferences. “The Folio Society has beautiful classic books, but they also have more contemporary works. I will warn you, if you go on their website you will spend money,” she laughs.

For those trying to build community and make friends with fellow readers, “I would suggest joining Facebook groups. As much as I love Instagram, Facebook allows for more debate and conversation about the books you love,” Samantha says. “There also has not been a book person I’ve met on Instagram that hasn’t been lovely, so I wouldn’t be afraid to follow people, comment on their posts, and message them asking where they’ve gotten the books on their page. You should definitely follow Bookstagrammers on Instagram.”

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If you’re interested in seeing more of Samantha’s collection, you can do so @vanbuurenlibrary on Instagram.

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Part of what makes Samantha’s collection so dear to her is knowing that she will one day be able to pass it on to her young son. “Right now he loves books with flaps and is not very gentle,” she says. “But I’ve got a big collection of the Narnia books that I want to read with him one day. I’m just waiting for him to have more of an attention span, right now, we can hardly make it through The Gruffalo.”

When that day comes, however, he’ll be one lucky child, with hundreds of worlds to step into all inside the little library in his home.

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“I'm so grateful that Bond and Grace found my Instagram account and contacted me. They've been wonderful to work with and I've had so much fun being involved in their creative process. I'm very excited to see more editions from them. I will absolutely be recommending Bond and Grace in the future, their Art Novel editions would be a stunning addition to any book collection.”--Samantha on her experience with Bond & Grace

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