A to Z Theme 2016

For my 2016 A to Z theme I used a meme that I ran across on the blog of Bridget Straub who first saw it on the blog of Paula Acton. This meme is a natural for me to use on my memoir blog. It's an A to Z concept and it's about me. No research and nothing complicated. I'm given twenty six questions or topics to discuss that are about me.

In April I kept my posts short and uncomplicated. In the midst of it all you might learn a few things about me that you didn't previously know.

Saturday, March 12, 2016

The Library of my Life


A shelf in my home office.

        When I walk around my house I can see books in nearly every room.  In fact there are books hidden away that I can't even see.  There are books in my writing office, every bedroom, the hallway, the living room, dining room, garage, and even the kitchen where a number of cookbooks as well as other miscellaneous books sit in a top shelf of one of the cabinets.  Most of the books sit neatly on shelves while some are in stacks since my shelf spaces long ago became filled.  And I have no more room for more book shelves.  I suppose I could almost say that my house has nearly reached saturation point as far as books go.

         Gazing over all of my books I can see the story of my life told by this library.  The book that I've owned longest is a King James Version of the Holy Bible given to me by Reverend Frank Van Valen from the Penn Hills Free Methodist Church in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1958 when I was seven years old.  I also still have a book of religious artwork given to me at about the same time.  Both of these are books that I've referred to many times in my life.

         Those are not the first books I ever owned.  The first books were several Little Golden Books that I can still picture in my mind.  It's too bad that I don't still have those books, but those disappeared long ago, probably when I felt that I had outgrown them.  They were treasures to me when I was small.

Many of  these books on this shelf in my late
mother's home are now in my own home.

         Starting at about age ten I began to amass a library of Tom Swift and Hardy Boys books.  Those were my favorite books in my pre-adolescent years.  Most of that collection was given away to some younger neighbor kid perhaps or maybe sold at a yard sale.  However I still do have a few of these left, now residing in book stacks in my home office. I've actually reread some of these in recent years. Such memories of wonderful reading experiences relived over fifty years later.

         In my early teen years I began to buy books through the Doubleday One Dollar Book Club.  The introductory offer of twelve books for ninety-nine cents was a boon to expanding my library. The obligatory later purchases assured a steady growth in my book collection to the point that my parents bought me book shelves for my bedroom.  I read a lot during junior high and never lacked reading material in my ever growing personal library.

      Soon I was joining other Doubleday Book Clubs such as the Science Fiction and Fantasy Club and the Mystery Book Club.  I had become obsessed with reading and building my own personal library of books.  Many of these have since been dispersed in the same way as my earlier books, but I also still have many of these fine books still on my shelves today. I was relatively discriminating about which books I got rid of and now consider the remaining books worth keeping.

      College brought about a new onslaught of books--both textbooks and books that I bought because I was interested in them.   Throughout my adult years I have continued to buy books.  When I was on the road, bookstores were regular stops for me as I continually kept up with newer books that I had heard about or classics that I wanted to read.  Each year at the end of the tour, more books would go into storage.  I still have many of those books in my collection.

       All through my life I have bought books. Buying books became not only a habit for me, but a necessary passion.  If I had money, I would buy books.  Often I would not get around to reading the books which now means I have a lot of books still to read.  

       Now I can peruse my collection of books and remember how I came upon almost every one of them.  My books are like a gallery of the history of my life.  The physicality of these books are points in my past, eras of my interests, and memories of my reading pleasures.  My personal library says as much or more about who I am as anything else that I own.   These books are a big part of me.

        Have you amassed a personal library?    Do you think of your books as a part of your history?  Are there any special books that particularly define who you are or who you were at some past time?





17 comments:

  1. If I didn't say I have many Bibles, people might be surprised. And I think it's funny that I do have so many and...they say the same thing, maybe different words, many are the same. I DO have a Golden Book that my mom saved for me. I'm a clean freak and I mean clean. I don't like chaos in my home or elsewhere, but if books are spilling over or in stacks on the floor without a shelf, I'm sooo happy. That is not clutter.

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    1. Teresa, I have a lot of Bibles too as well as Bible commentaries and other books related to Biblical topics. Someday I'd like to have just a library room with maybe a reading chair, a desk or work table, and wall to wall book shelves. That might accommodate all of my books in one convenient place.

      Although I still like the idea of some books in each room.

      Lee

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  2. I never liked the Hardys as well as the Nancy Drews... funny, because they were basically the same stories with different protagonists.

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    1. CW, my sister had the Nancy Drew collection but I don't recall ever reading any of them. The covers looked essentially the same so I have little doubt that the stories were basically the same.

      Lee

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  3. My books are still packed from my move here in 2011. There's just no room to put up a bookcase and unpack them. My ex got quite a few of them in the divorce too.

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    1. JoJo, I ended up with some of my ex's books too because she was very transient and never took them with her. I've also got a lot of books packed in boxes though I'm not thrilled about that.

      Lee

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  4. Gave away boxes of books when we last moved. I had no choice due to space. The paperbacks start to turn yellow and the page background darkens. Hardbacks survive better. Good luck if you decide to streamline your collection, but for me it wasn't easy.

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    1. DG, I hated to get rid of the books that I got rid of in the past, but sometimes that streamline mood hits and I start dumping stuff. Sometimes later I wish I could have it back.

      Lee

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  5. I also feel that joy in being surrounded by books, but I've had to turn over my library three times in my life as I've moved too far away to take that many books with me. There are a few really old novels I wish I'd kept though, like A Girl of the Limberlost. Buying shiny new replacements wouldn't be the same...

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    1. Patricia, moving often involves sacrifice of possessions. I've done it and perhaps I will have to one day do it again.

      Lee

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  6. LEE, I still have a ton of books even though I've gotten rid of many of them over the years of moving from house to house, city to city.

    It was pretty much 'THE YELLOW Y' by Seckatary Hawkins (1926) and Hardy Boy stories that got me addicted to reading when I was a kid. Thankfully, I still have 'THE YELLOW Y'.

    Also, I just recently purchased a book of photographs from the The Great Depression and The Dust Bowl. I wanted that book so badly when I was about 20 years old. My Grandma gave it to me for Christmas and I loved it. But it was a big coffee table kinda picture book that I eventually let go of many years later when I was moving so often.

    Recently I began thinking of it again and wanted to reacquire it. For awhile I couldn't remember the title of it but I finally stumbled upon it ('A VISION SHARED') and ordered a used copy from someone online. It should arrive any day now. I can't wait to have it again.

    ~ D-FensDogG
    'Loyal American Underground'

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    1. STMcC, wouldn't it be a great irony if the copy of that book you've recently purchased was the same copy you let go of years ago? Those big books can be tough ones to keep if you're moving around. I've had similar things that I recall once having but don't know now where they ended up.

      Lee

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    2. Ha! You know, I'd actually had that same thought momentarily. Until it dawned on me that it wasn't possible.

      The product page described the dust jacket as being in poor condition while the book itself is in good condition.

      But I've always been in the habit of discarding the dust jackets on most of my hardcover books. So, if this one still has it, it couldn't be my old copy.

      It would have been cool though if it did come back to me like that after all these years.

      ~ D-FensDogG

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  7. There were always books where I lived, lots of readers too. So much so that grandma built shelves across an entire wall in the den. Between all of us our books totaled upwards of 2500. I quit counting after that ;-)

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    1. Diedre, that's a lot of books! I'm not sure how many I have here. Probably at least that many. Like you I've stopped counting.

      Lee

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  8. I have had so many books over the course of my life, I have had to purge, and purge again and purge one more time. I have come to the point that I now prefer to go to the library rather than buying books, unless it's something really special. I go to the library about every other week and get out at least two books. When they are done, I go back. Makes for more room on my shelves these days...

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    1. Liza, for a while I was going to the library on a regular basis, but I stopped when they remodeled our local branch. I need to go back to at check it out since they finished it. The place looks pretty nice now--though it was nice before.

      Lee

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Arlee Bird