Another excellent essay. The late Cuban poet, short story writer, and playwright, Virgilio Pinera, said that all writing was the act of "regurgitating what we've read". That's pushing it a bit, because it suggests copy-and-paste, but I get his point. There's an impulse to write once we've devoured book after book after.

I loved your anecdote about your brother building you a bookshelf. In my tiny flat in Havana, I once built a minute bookshelf myself with just three or four planks of wood I was given at a local carpenter's workshop. :-) No bolts or screws to hold them together. They just sat on the tallest books, which I placed at both ends of the makeshift bookshelf. If you build it, they'll come. And the books kept on coming! :-)