I spent all weekend trying to figure out what I wanted to write to you about this week. As of a few hours ago, I thought I’d be writing to you about my new children’s journal that I am releasing on August 1. I still want to tell you about the journal because it’s awesome and I’m over the moon about it, but I think I’ll do that a little later this week. Instead, I want to talk about my book collection.
I love to read. I always have since I was a little girl when my mom would take me to the library for storytime and read to me before I went to sleep. I was also the person who would check out books from my classroom library, school library, and borrow as many books from the Book Mobile when it visited my school. Who remembers the Book Mobile? Is this still a thing?
A snapshot of just a small part of my book collection.
Anyway, the point I’m making is that I crave stories, and over the years I have collected a lot of books. I haven’t officially counted how many books I have, but I’d say I have several hundred scattered about my home. The reason I’m telling you this is that today I’ve been putting my book collection in storage bins to free up some space, and while I was packing these books away, I realized why collecting books brings me joy.
Each time I pulled a book off a shelf and gently placed it in the gray, plastic storage container, I had a reaction. After reading so many books, it’s not possible to keep the stories straight, but each book tugged on an emotional string. There are the books I remembered fondly and smiled immediately when I touched them, not because I remembered the plot, but because I remembered how the story made me feel. Sometimes, the book took me back to another place and time like a beach read that I read on a vacation with my family or a book I devoured on a long road trip.
Of course, there were some books that I didn’t like as much, and it’s hard to forget how tortuous they were to finish. Luckily, I don’t do that to myself anymore. An old friend once told me it was okay to put down a book I didn’t like.
Life’s too short to read a book you don’t enjoy.
Those words changed the kind of reader I am today. Now, I read for joy, for empathy, and for learning, but never out of obligation.
My book collection also shows how my reading tastes and habits have changed throughout the years. I have nearly every book Anne Rice wrote in The Vampire Chronicles and the Lives of the Mayfair Witches series. One is even signed from when I met her at the long-gone, Library Ltd., in Clayton, Missouri, during a book signing in the late 90s. That was over twenty years ago, and man, did I feel completely out of place standing in line for hours. Everyone was dressed gothic and vampire-like and I showed up in jeans and a t-shirt, but I got my signed copy and met Anne!
Just a couple of the storage containers filled with my book collection
But these days, I don’t read that kind of fiction anymore. Today, I read stories from writers like Jodi Picoult and Khaled Hosseini who write from a true-to-life perspective. Although, I did read The Passage series by Justin Cronin, which essentially was about vampires and the end of the world.
I’m not buying as many physical books anymore these days. I try to read on my iPad to live a little more minimally, save the trees, and the planet. You know, all that good stuff, but I still have a digital collection that’s crazy huge. Reading and storytelling will always be a part of my life no matter what form it comes in.
Thanks for letting me share with you my book collection thoughts. I hope your collection is just as special and fills you with happy memories!
