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This morning my son came in my bedroom as I lay sprawled on my bed, gazing at the bookcase next to the bed.
“What are you doing, Mom?”
“Just looking at my books.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. I just like looking at them. It makes me feel good.”
I’ve often felt odd or weird for having such a love affair with books. Book stores are very dangerous places for me–once I go in, it’s as if I’ve entered the black hole. I emerge hours later, glassy-eyed, pocketbook empty.
Last night I was a guest speaker for a writers’ group that met at Barnes & Noble (I left my wallet in the car). When I mentioned that I just love to stare at the books on my shelf, the other writers nodded. “I do that, too!” they confessed. “I thought I was the only one!”
Bookcases are in strategic locations all over my house. The one next to my bed contains my favorite books. Here’s a sampling:
- The complete works of Jane Austen
- Four Thomas Hardy novels
- Richard Llewellyn’s How Green Was My Valley Series (including a rare book I searched for for years and my hubby surprised me with one year — my favorite gift EVER)
- Well-worn copies of The Lord of the Rings series
- Jan Karon’s The Mitford Years series
- James Herriot’s All Creatures Great and Small series
- Ann of Green Gables series
- A sprinkling of Chicken Soup for the Soul books
- A Maeve Binchy novel (have you guessed yet that I love British lit?)
- Autographed copies of books by my author friends
- At least 30 books that are waiting paitently to be read.
Bookcase #2 (in my son’s room) has a selection of classic and contemporary children’s books.
Bookcase #3 (in my bedroom closet, of all places) has old yearbooks, photo albums, and my husband’s fantasy and science fiction novels.
Bookcase #4 (in the hallway) contains adoption books and stacks of books I picked up at a booksellers trade show that I want to read and review.
And my office has floor-to-ceiling bookshelves with reference books, books on writing, Christian books, math textbooks (my husband is a math teacher), and a bunch more books about adoption.
What’s on your bookshelf?
And then there’s the SMELL of a bookstore…coffee mingled with new books…highly addictive.