My Mom spent all her meager lunch money on books, when a girl. She was rightfully afraid of her Mom, my Grandma, and hid them under the bed. At some point Grandma found all these books. The reaction, usually severe, was a bit unexpected-she borrowed money and bought a bookcase.
That's why when I grew up I was already surrounded by tons of books, and since then, I consider it one of the most calming things.
I was from a low income family. People gave us their castoffs, including books. My father made floor-to-ceiling bookshelves around the house my parents built, and nearly every room had at least one bookshelf. Yet, in the books we did have, I read of other books we did not have, many of which I eventually searched out for myself to read.
Your likening the Biblical account of Creation to organizing a library reminded me of my two favorite verses on books, one humourous, one hopeful:
"But beyond these, my son, be warned: there is no end to the making of many books, and much study wearies the body." Ecclesiastes 12:14
"And there are also many other things Jesus did, which, if every one of them were written down, I suppose not even the world itself could contain the books that would be written." John 21:25
I have competing impulses that can be hard to manage and difficult to navigate. I love books and I’m a minimalist. I look for things I can live without. Things I don’t need. Things I don’t use. I try to simplify. To keep condensing. But my bookshelves are close to sagging. Full and always under threat of breaking. I keep adding volumes, oblivious to the crash that is surely impending. All the while I keep looking for things I can live without. Things I don’t need. Things I don’t use. I try to embrace minimalism, to live simply, but I only know how to relate to books maximally.
"We scarcely ever consider the negatives; are there any worth seriously pondering? Nah." - My feelings exactly! To my great delight I just discovered a forgotten gift card to a bookstore and will be pondering how to solve the "too many books out there" problem by bring a few more into our home:)
Also, I will be starting a bookshop link on my substack via bookshop.org. Have you considered this for your site here? I just learned about this model, which connects readers with independent booksellers (rather than amazon).
Love reading as always. So much resonated with me. One of the joys of our current home is the fact we have a library (sacrificed a separate dining room for it). It’s very loosely organized by genre at the moment (all our shelves are temporary measures until we can afford built in shelves), but I love the idea of creating a personal cannon/best books section. And I can see already how much it affects my kids just being around books all the time. Before they had the attention span and listen to a story, they pulled books off the shelves for fun. They were curious about the books themselves and how they ‘worked.’ And they know that books were something special, important, and constant for our family.
With my precious pocket money committed to my growing collection of Airfix and other plastic models of airplanes, ships, tanks, and cars I was devoted to the public library. I would check out the maximum number of books permitted focusing especially on science fiction and history. The scifi section I worked through from A thru Z and the started over again to catch new additions, history was often pursued chronologically and sometimes laterally as I read through all the available books on a single topic and compared the versions. Now some years retired, my wife and I share a general library of selected fiction, poetry, nonfiction, and reference works (alphabetical by author) as well as our respective working libraries located separately. Mine is mainly history shelved chronologically.
Reading this was a delight! I dream of devoting a whole room in my house to books -- this reminds me I just need to get creative with my small space and try!
My Mom spent all her meager lunch money on books, when a girl. She was rightfully afraid of her Mom, my Grandma, and hid them under the bed. At some point Grandma found all these books. The reaction, usually severe, was a bit unexpected-she borrowed money and bought a bookcase.
That's why when I grew up I was already surrounded by tons of books, and since then, I consider it one of the most calming things.
Thank you for this very calming post.
Patrice Lewis write occasionally about her home library of 5000+ books. (I guess they cut down somewhat when they moved about three years ago.)
Shipping a library (her daughter's) overseas: http://www.rural-revolution.com/2024/01/shipping-library.html
Building a library http://www.rural-revolution.com/2021/07/evolution-of-library.html
What does 5000 books look like? http://www.rural-revolution.com/2010/04/what-do-5000-books-look-like.html
(Her books tab: http://www.rural-revolution.com/search/label/books)
I was from a low income family. People gave us their castoffs, including books. My father made floor-to-ceiling bookshelves around the house my parents built, and nearly every room had at least one bookshelf. Yet, in the books we did have, I read of other books we did not have, many of which I eventually searched out for myself to read.
Your likening the Biblical account of Creation to organizing a library reminded me of my two favorite verses on books, one humourous, one hopeful:
"But beyond these, my son, be warned: there is no end to the making of many books, and much study wearies the body." Ecclesiastes 12:14
"And there are also many other things Jesus did, which, if every one of them were written down, I suppose not even the world itself could contain the books that would be written." John 21:25
Today's post (with picture) on building our home library can be found at www.twocities.org
I have competing impulses that can be hard to manage and difficult to navigate. I love books and I’m a minimalist. I look for things I can live without. Things I don’t need. Things I don’t use. I try to simplify. To keep condensing. But my bookshelves are close to sagging. Full and always under threat of breaking. I keep adding volumes, oblivious to the crash that is surely impending. All the while I keep looking for things I can live without. Things I don’t need. Things I don’t use. I try to embrace minimalism, to live simply, but I only know how to relate to books maximally.
"So, if God is bringing order to chaos, and nature is a book, then perhaps creation is simply God organizing his library."
I like that! Building my library is doing God's work. :)
"We scarcely ever consider the negatives; are there any worth seriously pondering? Nah." - My feelings exactly! To my great delight I just discovered a forgotten gift card to a bookstore and will be pondering how to solve the "too many books out there" problem by bring a few more into our home:)
Also, I will be starting a bookshop link on my substack via bookshop.org. Have you considered this for your site here? I just learned about this model, which connects readers with independent booksellers (rather than amazon).
Love reading as always. So much resonated with me. One of the joys of our current home is the fact we have a library (sacrificed a separate dining room for it). It’s very loosely organized by genre at the moment (all our shelves are temporary measures until we can afford built in shelves), but I love the idea of creating a personal cannon/best books section. And I can see already how much it affects my kids just being around books all the time. Before they had the attention span and listen to a story, they pulled books off the shelves for fun. They were curious about the books themselves and how they ‘worked.’ And they know that books were something special, important, and constant for our family.
With my precious pocket money committed to my growing collection of Airfix and other plastic models of airplanes, ships, tanks, and cars I was devoted to the public library. I would check out the maximum number of books permitted focusing especially on science fiction and history. The scifi section I worked through from A thru Z and the started over again to catch new additions, history was often pursued chronologically and sometimes laterally as I read through all the available books on a single topic and compared the versions. Now some years retired, my wife and I share a general library of selected fiction, poetry, nonfiction, and reference works (alphabetical by author) as well as our respective working libraries located separately. Mine is mainly history shelved chronologically.
Dadgummit, Joel. I had completely forgotten these past couple of decades about Oak Knoll Press. Now I am $85 poorer for the reminding.
Thanks,
Brian
Reading this was a delight! I dream of devoting a whole room in my house to books -- this reminds me I just need to get creative with my small space and try!