I love books since I have memories. My father always read me a nighttime story before bed. It was a magical moment for me. I still have my first book and I remember in the summer, before I went to 1st grade, to tell everyone with excitement that I was going to learn how to read and that book was going to be the first I will read. I can’t imagine my life without books. I have books in my phone, I carry many in my Kobo and I still go to the library to borrow books. I have Dostoiévski in my office in case I have time in lunchtime. I always carry one book in my purse. And my house have at least one book in every room 😅 I feel content and relaxed when reading. So I tend to read more when I’m stressed with something. But it always makes me feel better 🌿
Creating a great library around a great couch with a great fireplace letting the chills from great prose run through me… one of these days, one of these days. Until then, a great messy disordered scattering and not enough time to read.
Congratulations on your new work space! How exciting! Thank you for the lovely photo; it’s wonderful to see the things on your shelf.
Thank you, too, for this beautiful encomium to books. I loved every word - both yours and the ones you quote - and was so moved by what you wrote that I couldn’t answer at first.
I don’t know how I would separate my books in two places. My home, where I live and work, is overrun with books and my dilemma is always which books belong in the bedroom (on my bed, night table, on the floor beneath my bed - just as you said) and which belong on the bookshelves that line the walls in every other room.
With some cherished books, I have more than one copy because I like to mark books up but I also like to have a pristine copy to read when I don’t want anything (even my own markings) to get in the way of the author’s voice.
I love the quotation from Cicero that a room without books is like a body without a soul. I have felt that way my whole life, even as a child, before I could have understood it so. I also love the quotation from Frederick Douglass that, "Once you learn to read, you will be forever free." That is how I felt as a little girl and how I still feel.
Your idea of traveling books is a good one. I imagine it will be a process wherein you figure out which books you need where and whether you need two copies of a few - one for your work space and one for home. I look forward to hearing how you work it out.
Here is my favorite quotation about books. This, from Virginia Woolf:
“When the Day of Judgment dawns and people, great and small, come marching in to receive their heavenly rewards, the Almighty will gaze upon the mere bookworms and say to Peter, ‘Look, these need no reward. We have nothing to give them. They have loved reading.’”
My first thought was a bit of advice--it's free to take or leave as you wish--but perhaps for your new work space, a floating book "island" would be a happy place for your books that may be at home in both spaces or as needed, to go to and fro, a sort of miniature lending library for your own personal use, and one that can be near the door or desk or elsewhere.
The quotes are thoughtful and come from many voices I admire. I also very much agree with Mr. Eco that the value of the printed word and libraries are inestimable. (I recently came across a large coffee-table book about the world's most beautiful libraries, some of which featured in the trailer. Ahhh, just to be in such spaces ...) For myself, I keep the books that move me or connect with me the most; the ones I feel less attached to I pass on so others may have the opportunity to be moved by them.
As I develop my own writing, I take careful consideration to write what moves me to write; to write the stories that I wish to read that no one else has written (to paraphrase Toni Morrison, IIRC); I try to write not in imitation of any of the writers I admire but with respect to how far they have taken me, so that I may endeavor to go just that bit further.
Thank you for your own writing and for moving me to write in reciprocation!
I have this weird obsession about buying books and looking at them with a smile, even if I won't read them soon. At least they are mine now.” - Anais Nin
A kindred spirit. Books are my last vice, which I protect with all my might. There are books in every room of my small townhouse. When I visit someone who has no visible books, I wonder, how can you possibly bear to live here?
I remember I couldn't wait to learn how to read. I since I have, I never stopped. My dream as a girl was to have shelves of books that would go from floor to ceiling. For a long time, I lived in a studio with very limited space and couldn't have as many books as I wanted. Since we moved in together with my partner, we have my dream: he accumulated so many books! So my own shelves are filled with books I haven't read yet and that I've been discovering for the last 10 years of living together. I love to reread books. It's like getting back together with an old friend. You remeber some things, you've copletely forgotten others and rediscover them. What really amaze me is how one book can deliver different feelings and messages the more you read it. You change and the meaning of certain passages reveal themselves anew to you (I'm not sure I make myself clear here...). Anyway, books are a true joy.
Hi Fanny, that was my dream as a little girl too! I’m so glad to hear that now you have all those shelves filled with books. How wonderful that our book dreams came true! I also love to reread and agree that the feelings and meanings and messages change as we do.
Dear Jesse , I read your Mama’s comments first and could not believe that she had read Finnegan’s Wake , at least not more than a few paragraphs or chapters. Not that I doubt my heroine you understand, just that I have never known anyone who has,though many who have tried. I picked it up in the College library many years ago , read a page and put it back!
Anyway I absolutely loved your article and excellent title . I understand your dilemma about what are work books and which pleasure , I have tried but given up . I feel guilty sometimes that I have not read quite a lot of mine but love that they are there all around me in my loft bedroom , I try giving some away but seldom succeed and have two boxes full right now waiting for me to take them to our local charity shop …book lovers are the best of people. I got my love of reading from my Mother, long time gone now , whereas my Dad and younger brother seemed to glory in not reading which is such an alien concept isn’t it? Anyway thank you for your article it gave me a very warm glow 👌👏👏
I am a great lover of books. It all began when I was young, in a poor household, with a library card, a gift to the outer world and to fantasy worlds beyond. Going up the catwalks of the stacks with my mother when I was young, then being in the new library and hanging out there by myself when I was older, reading old newspapers on microfilm, the Berkeley Barb, cool things. Then I worked at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign’s Library in many capacities, transliterating a huge Yiddish collection since I was the only one that could read it, and learning to bind some of our ancient books, holding them was such a mystery and a gift. I started my own collection. Your many quotes describe my journey with books, I grew a huge collection in my suburban home raising kids. They were not readers, except online. Then when I downsized to a condo, my collection also had to be downsized and I had to carefully consider what books no longer defined me-that was interesting, who was I, who am I now in my 60’s? Now I live in a wonderful community in Ann Arbor with retired University of Michigan professors and I can donate books downstairs to our library. I have a deal with myself: if I buy a book, I have to donate one of my books somewhere. If I donate a book downstairs, then it is like I still have it. My sister often gifts me books and she is an avid reader who often attends writer events like you and I have so many precious things from her. I have only a few beautiful collectible books, Ernest Hemingway, Mark Twain, Margaret Atwood. I still need a Henry David Thoreau. I have inherited one book: I was in college and someone from my class approached me-he had had a friend who had lost his battle with mental illness and killed himself and had a large book collection and this friend was giving his books away one at a time to an appropriate person. He gave me the Leonardo da Vinci notebooks because I am a physicist who also does artwork. That’s the best present I’ve ever received. Thanks for posting this.
How l feel for you Jesse. It’s impossible to decide which books to keep where ( in my case various bookcases, shelves, bedside table and stacks on the floor). Books have always been part of my life they teach me so much, take me on travels, introduce me to different cultures and people, make me curious, make me cry and indeed love.
I loved the quotes particularly Maya Angelou and Haruki Murakami both favourites of mine.
I wish you good luck in your move and will be interested in what books go back and forth until they find their place 🙏
My most favorite job was owning a quirky little bookstore in West Concord MA featuring used, old, rare, and odd books, plus vinyl records, comix, and ephemera. We had a bookstore cat, and 2 monthly open mikes for poetry and music. I think you would have loved it! It was a wonderful community space that unfortunately only lasted for 3 years due to rising rent and a lack of other options.
All so true, and thank you for the wonderful quotes.
I love books. I have a hard time choosing the ones to keep and the ones to donate. I've never counted my books. Maybe someday.
I love books since I have memories. My father always read me a nighttime story before bed. It was a magical moment for me. I still have my first book and I remember in the summer, before I went to 1st grade, to tell everyone with excitement that I was going to learn how to read and that book was going to be the first I will read. I can’t imagine my life without books. I have books in my phone, I carry many in my Kobo and I still go to the library to borrow books. I have Dostoiévski in my office in case I have time in lunchtime. I always carry one book in my purse. And my house have at least one book in every room 😅 I feel content and relaxed when reading. So I tend to read more when I’m stressed with something. But it always makes me feel better 🌿
Creating a great library around a great couch with a great fireplace letting the chills from great prose run through me… one of these days, one of these days. Until then, a great messy disordered scattering and not enough time to read.
Wonderful message, will reread and savor…nice work!
Wonderful book quotes Jesse-enjoyed them all!💫📚
Dear Jesse,
Congratulations on your new work space! How exciting! Thank you for the lovely photo; it’s wonderful to see the things on your shelf.
Thank you, too, for this beautiful encomium to books. I loved every word - both yours and the ones you quote - and was so moved by what you wrote that I couldn’t answer at first.
I don’t know how I would separate my books in two places. My home, where I live and work, is overrun with books and my dilemma is always which books belong in the bedroom (on my bed, night table, on the floor beneath my bed - just as you said) and which belong on the bookshelves that line the walls in every other room.
With some cherished books, I have more than one copy because I like to mark books up but I also like to have a pristine copy to read when I don’t want anything (even my own markings) to get in the way of the author’s voice.
I love the quotation from Cicero that a room without books is like a body without a soul. I have felt that way my whole life, even as a child, before I could have understood it so. I also love the quotation from Frederick Douglass that, "Once you learn to read, you will be forever free." That is how I felt as a little girl and how I still feel.
Your idea of traveling books is a good one. I imagine it will be a process wherein you figure out which books you need where and whether you need two copies of a few - one for your work space and one for home. I look forward to hearing how you work it out.
Here is my favorite quotation about books. This, from Virginia Woolf:
“When the Day of Judgment dawns and people, great and small, come marching in to receive their heavenly rewards, the Almighty will gaze upon the mere bookworms and say to Peter, ‘Look, these need no reward. We have nothing to give them. They have loved reading.’”
With warmth and good wishes always,
Robin
A great story
My first thought was a bit of advice--it's free to take or leave as you wish--but perhaps for your new work space, a floating book "island" would be a happy place for your books that may be at home in both spaces or as needed, to go to and fro, a sort of miniature lending library for your own personal use, and one that can be near the door or desk or elsewhere.
The quotes are thoughtful and come from many voices I admire. I also very much agree with Mr. Eco that the value of the printed word and libraries are inestimable. (I recently came across a large coffee-table book about the world's most beautiful libraries, some of which featured in the trailer. Ahhh, just to be in such spaces ...) For myself, I keep the books that move me or connect with me the most; the ones I feel less attached to I pass on so others may have the opportunity to be moved by them.
As I develop my own writing, I take careful consideration to write what moves me to write; to write the stories that I wish to read that no one else has written (to paraphrase Toni Morrison, IIRC); I try to write not in imitation of any of the writers I admire but with respect to how far they have taken me, so that I may endeavor to go just that bit further.
Thank you for your own writing and for moving me to write in reciprocation!
I have this weird obsession about buying books and looking at them with a smile, even if I won't read them soon. At least they are mine now.” - Anais Nin
A kindred spirit. Books are my last vice, which I protect with all my might. There are books in every room of my small townhouse. When I visit someone who has no visible books, I wonder, how can you possibly bear to live here?
I feel the same. A home without books is as empty as a home without food.
I remember I couldn't wait to learn how to read. I since I have, I never stopped. My dream as a girl was to have shelves of books that would go from floor to ceiling. For a long time, I lived in a studio with very limited space and couldn't have as many books as I wanted. Since we moved in together with my partner, we have my dream: he accumulated so many books! So my own shelves are filled with books I haven't read yet and that I've been discovering for the last 10 years of living together. I love to reread books. It's like getting back together with an old friend. You remeber some things, you've copletely forgotten others and rediscover them. What really amaze me is how one book can deliver different feelings and messages the more you read it. You change and the meaning of certain passages reveal themselves anew to you (I'm not sure I make myself clear here...). Anyway, books are a true joy.
Yes, definitely. Loved your words here.
Hi Fanny, that was my dream as a little girl too! I’m so glad to hear that now you have all those shelves filled with books. How wonderful that our book dreams came true! I also love to reread and agree that the feelings and meanings and messages change as we do.
Wishing you much joy in reading always,
Robin
Dear Jesse , I read your Mama’s comments first and could not believe that she had read Finnegan’s Wake , at least not more than a few paragraphs or chapters. Not that I doubt my heroine you understand, just that I have never known anyone who has,though many who have tried. I picked it up in the College library many years ago , read a page and put it back!
Anyway I absolutely loved your article and excellent title . I understand your dilemma about what are work books and which pleasure , I have tried but given up . I feel guilty sometimes that I have not read quite a lot of mine but love that they are there all around me in my loft bedroom , I try giving some away but seldom succeed and have two boxes full right now waiting for me to take them to our local charity shop …book lovers are the best of people. I got my love of reading from my Mother, long time gone now , whereas my Dad and younger brother seemed to glory in not reading which is such an alien concept isn’t it? Anyway thank you for your article it gave me a very warm glow 👌👏👏
I am a great lover of books. It all began when I was young, in a poor household, with a library card, a gift to the outer world and to fantasy worlds beyond. Going up the catwalks of the stacks with my mother when I was young, then being in the new library and hanging out there by myself when I was older, reading old newspapers on microfilm, the Berkeley Barb, cool things. Then I worked at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign’s Library in many capacities, transliterating a huge Yiddish collection since I was the only one that could read it, and learning to bind some of our ancient books, holding them was such a mystery and a gift. I started my own collection. Your many quotes describe my journey with books, I grew a huge collection in my suburban home raising kids. They were not readers, except online. Then when I downsized to a condo, my collection also had to be downsized and I had to carefully consider what books no longer defined me-that was interesting, who was I, who am I now in my 60’s? Now I live in a wonderful community in Ann Arbor with retired University of Michigan professors and I can donate books downstairs to our library. I have a deal with myself: if I buy a book, I have to donate one of my books somewhere. If I donate a book downstairs, then it is like I still have it. My sister often gifts me books and she is an avid reader who often attends writer events like you and I have so many precious things from her. I have only a few beautiful collectible books, Ernest Hemingway, Mark Twain, Margaret Atwood. I still need a Henry David Thoreau. I have inherited one book: I was in college and someone from my class approached me-he had had a friend who had lost his battle with mental illness and killed himself and had a large book collection and this friend was giving his books away one at a time to an appropriate person. He gave me the Leonardo da Vinci notebooks because I am a physicist who also does artwork. That’s the best present I’ve ever received. Thanks for posting this.
What a moving story. Thank you for sharing it.
How l feel for you Jesse. It’s impossible to decide which books to keep where ( in my case various bookcases, shelves, bedside table and stacks on the floor). Books have always been part of my life they teach me so much, take me on travels, introduce me to different cultures and people, make me curious, make me cry and indeed love.
I loved the quotes particularly Maya Angelou and Haruki Murakami both favourites of mine.
I wish you good luck in your move and will be interested in what books go back and forth until they find their place 🙏
My most favorite job was owning a quirky little bookstore in West Concord MA featuring used, old, rare, and odd books, plus vinyl records, comix, and ephemera. We had a bookstore cat, and 2 monthly open mikes for poetry and music. I think you would have loved it! It was a wonderful community space that unfortunately only lasted for 3 years due to rising rent and a lack of other options.
How wonderful that sounds. I’m sorry that you had to close and glad you have a lot of leftover books.
It sounds like it was a great space:)
Thanks, it was! I still miss it. But I also have a lot of leftover books, so it lives on in a way. :)
Hope your new work space proves very conducive to whatever you want to do there.
Yesterday I was chastizing myself for bringing home yet more books. Love them. Collection outgrew shelving awhile ago so I have stacks too.
Lovely selection of quotes.
Several books I give away over and over again. A few have not returned so always on the lookout for other copies.
Last time that I had movers help me relocate they griped about how
heavy many boxes were.
"What's in here? Rocks?"
Correct!
I also have vinyl and rocks.
Between the 3 it sure is a blessing to have assistance.
Be careful with your back and knees
please!