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I can’t remember a time I wasn’t surrounded by books. My parents loved to read – to themselves and to us. Reading was something we did everyday. The Bible was read after our evening meal. I saw my parents relax by reading and we always had books read to us before bed. A visit to the library was a regular event.
As I grew older I began to read to myself and to my younger siblings. We didn’t own a huge number of books. Our shelves were filled with those from the library. As I went off to college and into adulthood a library card has always been a prized possession. I’ve lived in lots of places in my life and can count 12 different libraries where I was an avid patron.
Lucky for me, I married a reader. I guess you could say our children, and now our grandchildren, inherited the reading gene. As adults my husband and I bought lots and lots of books and magazines. They filled every room of our house. When it came time to retire and downsize our belongings, what to do with all the books was the hardest part for me. Most of the books had become my friends.
There were some of those “friends” I absolutely could not part with. They are in storage. Our children took some of the books. Two huge boxes of children’s books went to the grandchildren. The rest? They went to the library. After all these years of receiving so much pleasure from the library, I could think of no better place for my books to go. It’s not like I can’t see them again. I can always go visit. But now it’s good they bring pleasure to others.
What is your experience with books and with the library?
