In her novel Sisters, Ada Cambridge describes the plight of one sister who is suddenly left penniless (more or less) and has to move out of her home. The scene is set … the character is packing to move, with the house and her life in disarray:

Deb sat amid the ruins of her home. She occupied the lid of a deal-packing case that enclosed a few hundreds of books, and one that was half-filled stood before her, with a scatter of odd volumes on the floor around.

[…]

‘That cottage you talk about,’ he said, ‘will not hold all those.’

‘Oh, books don’t take any space,’ she replied brusquely. ‘They are no more than tapestry or frescoes. I shall have cases made to fit flat to the walls.’

‘That will cost money.’

‘One must have the bare necessities of life …’

You can tell that Deb is going to be one of the more interesting characters in the book, can’t you?