I was looking back into the archives of this blog to see if there might be something interesting that I could re-post and I found the post below from about ten years ago.
I thought of how the years have changed a lot of things, including the people who read this blog so I decided to run it again.
Saturday, June 6, 2015
BOOKIN'
This was a scene I encountered a week ago at a familiar location.
The folks at my local library were trying to clean out their overload of books by offering many of them for sale at bargain prices in a used book sale. The books were displayed just outside the front entrance of the library and local bibliophiles were having a great time perusing the collection and searching for good deals.
I had to prowl the piles of written material myself having had a lifelong love of books. Regular readers here may remember that SWMBO and I owned and ran a bookstore called BOOKENDS here for 7 years.
I was tempted numerous times by some of the titles but then I remembered our bookshelves at home with so many volumes waiting to be read.
And then SWMBO, noticing what I was doing, reminded me of the normally closed cabinet with the cookbooks!
By the time I got around to taking this picture, our curious big black cat, Blackwell, had discovered a new niche to be explored. I didn't notice him in there until I was editing the pictures.
Having taken this inventory, I am glad I refrained from buying any more books at the library book sale.
Sort of.
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While I didn't take note of it when I posted this originally, ten years ago, June 6th was my mother's birthday.
She, too, loved to read and maybe would have enjoyed looking through our book collection.
Regrettably she died in 1953, before we had accumulated this houseful, many of which are gone now, passed on to other readers.
22 comments:
Did you manage to get around to reading all your books in the collection.... or is that still an ongoing process?
I've started giving away books too. Nobody needs to deal with all my books when I die, and this way I get to make people happy.
Judy and I have large cookbook collections 😊 I love my cookbooks and in this world of using the computer to find a recipe, I love to flip through my hard copy books.
I've given away many books from my art and art history collection, and mysteries. I like them to be in new hands.
I don't own many books but I am a big borrower at my wonderful local library.
Wow! I thought Roger and I had a lot of books. We only have two big bookcases. You two have quite the library there. Have. you read them all? (NewRobin13)
Your mom died a long time ago; you must have been very young. That would have been devastating. My late mom never read a book to my knowledge but loved reading a variety of magazines. She was a very well-read and knowledgeable woman because of that. My dad always had his nose buried in a book and I am similar. I need to give away some of my books too.
When I was young, I saved every book I read. Gradually, I realized that was silly because I'm not going to read them again. Now I keep very, very few. Still, I love a used-book sale!
You are very much a book collector and reader. I read but not like you do. I like historical fiction.
Always ongoing, JayCee!
Yes, that's a good idea.
I now have a full shelf of cookbooks which I can't let go of even though I read recipes on line daily.
Judy is the mystery reader here but gets them from the library. I am usually into non-fiction but discovered Amor Towles a couple of years ago and love his books.
We borrow extravagantly from the library which is conveniently only a mile away.
Oh, of course not. And this is tiny compared to the wall of books we had years ago in Phoenix.
I was 13 when my mother died. It was difficult.
I have, or had, several books that I had read and reread multiple times. But with my advancing age I try not to do that anymore. And I'm always tempted by book sales.
My reading preferences are all over the map, as you can perhaps tell by my postings of the latest book I've read. I just finished "The Editor", about the amazing life of Judith Jones, and am now into a novel about "Billy the Kid".
Your mom died way too young, Mine passed in 1995 and I still had problems eating for six months afterwards. It's a hard loss.
After moving from house to house in Michigan and then to AZ and then to CO and back to AZ, the idea of lugging heavy boxes of books no longer has any appeal. We allow each other 12 books apiece. Both of us chose reference books. Rick carpentry and me interior design. If we move again even those will go. Now with the advent of online library loans and Kindle Unlimited be continue to be voracious readers but without the heavy lifting!
I love a book sale, though I rarely go to any, where would I put even more books? I had no idea you used to run a bookstore.
I can't pass up a book sale, but like you have several hundred on my shelves that I have yet to read. When I retired from storytelling, I gave away hundreds of collections of folktales, myths, legends, research, etc, etc. They went to other storytellers. I still have many I need to part with. It's a process.
I enjoyed the tour of your shelves! I have cut back to the big 8'x8' shelf, a smaller cabinet, several shelves full in a large cabinet, and my cookbook shelves,. There are also random stacks here and there, and let's not discuss the DVDs! With no streaming internet here, we have amassed quite a collection, all ones we intend to watch again and again.
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