Judging from this paragraph in her book 'The Clocks' she knew what it was like for books to run amok and take over! This may be a description of a bookshop but it also describes my house exactly....
"Inside it was clear that the books owned the shop rather than the other way about. Everywhere they had run wild and taken possession of their habitat, breeding and multiplying and clearly lacking any strong hand to keep them down. The distance between bookshelves was so narrow you could only get along with great difficulty. There were piles of books perched on every shelf or table. On a stool in the corner, hemmed in by books, was an old man in a pork pie hat with a large flat face like a stuffed fish. He had the air of one who had given up an unequal struggle. He had attempted to master the books but the books had obviously succeeded in mastering him. He was a kind of King Canute of the book world, retreating before the advancing book tide. If he ordered it to retreat it would have been with the sure and hopeless certainty that it would not do so...."
(The Clocks by Agatha Christe, Collins 1963 page 112)
NB - Not that I wear a pork pie hat and have a face like a stuffed fish (at least I hope not!)
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