Building A Library

My husband and I are addicted to books. We cannot help it. We simply love books, and there is no way around it. We have tried to stop buying books. Then we see a book warehouse or some type of book outlet, and we cave. A book clearance is a sure way to get us to stop in our tracks. Our library is having its semi-annual book sale in three weeks, and I get excited every time I go to the library and see the sign.

For a long time, we gathered books in a sort of haphazard fashion. We simply worked at gathering books we saw on sale. If the library put out a rack of books they were getting rid of, we picked through them and got out all of the books that looked interesting to us without any regard for a plan. During our college years, we managed to collect a bunch of books simply because we needed them for classes. We never sold our books back. I would not because I felt it was akin to selling my soul.

Now, though, we are grown-ups. We have a child, and hopefully we will have another one on the way soon. We are collecting for our son, too, of course, but we are at a point of wanting to settle down elsewhere in our lives. We are hoping to make a permanent move in the next year, and at that point, we want to begin putting together a library in our home.

Right now are book hobby is taking up our entire bedroom. We have collected enough books that our bedroom is covered wall to wall with bookshelves, some of which are beginning to overflow. Our son has a small bookshelf, and he needs a new one.

Anyway, we have decided to take our hobby to the next level. We are getting organized. We are making our book hobby something that we do regularly and with a purpose instead of just something to sidetrack us everyday.

Our first step is to beef up our fiction section. I had not realized that we had so many more reference and non-fiction books, but I guess that it makes sense. We have all of the books John Grisham has written, but he is the only author whose collection is complete. Over the next couple of weeks, before the library book sale, we are going to make a list of the books we have of some of our favorite authors. For the most part, these authors are mainstream fiction writers. We will get all of the books by Tom Clancy, Dean Koontz, and Patricia Cornwell at least.

Then we will begin to look at more non-mainstream authors. I enjoy Lia Matera novels, and she is a bit eccentric as far as novels go. She probably will go on our list although it will be large as we own only one of her books.

Then we will look at our non-fiction sections. We could stand to beef up several areas there. We could use more devotional and religious books. We find religion a very important topic. I also want to add some home improvement and decorating books as well as a few craft books. I find now that I write full-time, I often am looking for something non-writing to do, and a good craft book would help me come up with ideas.

Then we will begin our Spanish library. Well, we have already begun it, but we do not have much. We have four books that are intended solely to teach Spanish. Our son has a Thomas the Tank Engine in Spanish, but that is all we have. I am hoping that we have a large enough Mexican population that the library book sale will have a number of books in Spanish there. I want to begin adding them to our library so that we can have a bilingual library in our home. It will help me and our son to improve on our Spanish.

Building a library is our new structured hobby. If you love books, you understand. The process of building a full library in our home is so exciting! I cannot wait to get started.

By Julia Mercer