Stepping Stone

Lemony SnickSnak

“A good library will never be too neat, or too dusty, because somebody will always be in it, taking books off the shelves and staying up late reading them.” – Lemony Snicket

I’ve moved several times through my life so far, as most people do, but I’m never home until my books are with me. My most recent move brought me from Georgia to central Texas. I had intended to just rent a trailer and haul everything in one go, but my father wouldn’t hear it. He volunteered himself to cart all of my books sans a couple shelves. All of this was done despite my warnings of his possibly not acknowledging just how many books there were. Queue a week later, two days before the original ETA of his arrival with my small library of books to my apartment, he’s calling asking if I’m wanting to donate any of them. The answer: no. I had just culled what I didn’t want, had too many older novels that might be misplaced.

So, more than two days later, my father has arrived with the five book cases worth of books and my collection of swords (though that seemed much easier to transport?). They hadn’t been packed in the order in which they had been shelved, but I was thankful they had arrived nonetheless. Unfortunately, an completed collection of a musical encyclopedia has been lost somewhere along the way, but seeing as how that’s the only thing lost in the move, and that my much older books (two first editions of Twain) survived in the same condition in which I had left them, I count the move as a success. Now my apartment is more homey, at least to me. My birds like it anyway.

I like Snicket’s library, especially as I look around myself. A decent mixture of both mine and my husband’s books, I’ve got books new and old and everywhere in between. At the moment, my Chaucerian section is tied with the Tolkien for most shelf space, Chaucer winning by half a shelf. I certainly use the Chaucer section more than the Tolkien, but between the husband’s rather expansive collection and my own, the Tolkien section is the most interesting to view. The theology section is an ode to having gone to a Christian fine arts school for most of my adolescent years and the desire to learn having never faltered. Most of my papers being around the topic of medieval and English renaissance periods, theology has presented an excellent source of background knowledge.

Being a lover of library’s, most all my books were purchased due to having read a book on loan from a local library and wanting to add it to my own collection. All that said, always support your local library! I wouldn’t be where I am today were it not for the public library in Peachtree City that always had space for teenagers and a collection for everyone.

Yours truly,

Estelle