The Bookkeeper

It seems that we might be exposing Renee’s secret; she’s kept her tattoos hidden from her parents for about 4 years. She got her first tattoo at the age of 18, and went on to get tattoos in Latin and in Greek. “I’m not a very big fan of English,” she says. Slightly ironic, perhaps, given that she’s been working in a bookstore for about as long as she’s been keeping her tattoos under wraps. “I love how I start work every morning to the smell of books, dust, and sometimes, very faintly, cat litter,” she says. And lest you mistake working in a bookstore as every book-lover’s dream, Renee is quick to brush aside any misconceptions. “We don’t actually get to read,” she says. “After four years of working seven days a week, I think I can safely call myself a workaholic.” She muses about moving to “some godforsaken part of Japan” and becoming a farmer, leading a laborious, but simple and meaningful life, if she wasn’t currently working here. Either that, or becoming a lighthouse keeper. Wherever she ends up, Renee’s quote of the moment is: “May the space between where I am and where I want to be inspire me.”