Books

When I was a very little kid, I used to amuse myself when my mother was on the telephone in the hallway (in those days the phone was a stand in the hallway) by rearranging all the books on the bookshelf, also in the hallway. Well, perhaps rearranging the books is not exactly correct. My mother said I like to pull them out, but didn’t do so well at putting them away.

I used to collect the Bobbsey Twins books. I think I probably had about 30 of them when I moved on to harder books. My poor mother had a hard time finding some library to take them when I no longer wanted them. Kids loved them, but I guess they are not considered fine children’s literature.

In my public school, books were included in the deal. Mercifully, I was not given the option of retaining my elementary and high school texts. I did manage, some years later, to get a copy of Dick and Jane, my first reader. Later, when I was a student teacher, I managed to acquire a copy of English Grammar and Composition – the 12th grade edition (the one that has EVERYTHING in it).

College textbooks were easily sold for the first couple of years, but as I got closer and closer to graduation and the books became more relevant, it seemed more important to keep them. I still HAVE them. Not that they are good for much anymore.

Graduate school texts – well, you never get rid of those, right?

Meanwhile, while I have been accumulating textbooks, the whole world has changed. It used to be necessary to hold information close to you, just in case you needed it.—even if it was outdated. Now, it is easy to find information just when you need it. So, why do I have all these old textbooks, mostly written by dead people?

Then there are the paperbooks. You pay good money for them, so why get rid of them? Well, at some point you know you have read them and will likely never read them again. I do manage to get rid of many of mine, but my husband never has, to my knowledge, parted with a single one. In his case, maybe it is excusable, as he often re-reads them.

This week, I have been thinking about books a lot. I just seem to collect them. I don’t really mean to. It just happens. I attend luncheons and conferences and authors speak. They autograph their books, and I buy one almost every time. Who could resist?

Then there are the medical reference books. True, they have come in handy over the years. I don’t know why I have a small shelf filled with them. Pre-Internet I had to deal with the prolonged deaths of both of my parents. I was hungry for information. So as a result I know more about obsolete treatments for lung cancer and heart failure than the average person.



Costco is a dangerous place for a book lover. They have all of these great books at very cheap prices. They have the latest and greatest in hardback that can easily slip into the cart next to the Feta cheese, underwear and towels.

Regardless of the reason, I have a lot of books – too many books! I should have been going to the library all these years. After all, I am trained as a librarian and worked as one for twenty years. You would think I would get the idea! Sure, sometimes I do actually go to the library, but not often enough. You see, all the books that somehow make their way into my life are there waiting in patiently in line to be read. I wouldn’t dare introduce a borrowed book to jump in line ahead of them all.

I did get behind on my reading. It has to do with eyeglasses. If you can’t focus on type, you can’t read books. It is that simple. It turns out that I am a polycarbonate non-adapt. That means that the expensive polycarbonate lens I spent good money on (because they are supposed to be better than plastic or glass) don’t work for my eyes. Now I have plastic lenses and can see again. That means I can read books again!

But, now what to do with all those books! I am going to give a bunch away. Maybe I will give them to the Rotary club to send to people all over the world. Sometimes I wonder what the people in Senegal really will do with my old psychology text from 1965. But maybe some person hungry for knowledge will dwell on every word and this book will change that person’s life. It gives me comfort to think that anyway!