On Books

Total number of books I've owned:

Because both Mike and I love to read and had worked at Borders, he in his undergrad days and me in my grad school days, we bought books. Lots of 'em! We were paid in books (bonuses, house accounts, raffles, freebies from publishers, marketers, vendors). We had contests: Who owned the most books? Who owned the most specialty books (science books, cookbooks, computer books, knitting books, fiction books, political science books, the list was endless)? Who read the most books? Who moved the most books out of state? Within a state?

So how many books do we have? Completely clueless. Boxes of 'em piled over six feet high in every available space in the house! As many of you know, we have recently moved. This move required that our collective collection of books be relocated to the new house. At the beginning, very detailed labeling occurred. However, as the summer progressed, and the heat intensified, and my patience abandoned me, we discontinued even cursory labels like "K" or "M."

And although we brought more boxes of books with us than we care to think about when we moved, this does not take into account the books I gave to used books stores when I moved two moves ago, books lost on the way moving back to MI from Hawaii, California, the Carolinas or Florida, or the books we abandoned last month. So yes, we have thousands of books.

We needed more shelving when we moved, so Mike and my brother designed and built these GORGEOUS shelves. Because the shelves are now attached to the wall, are eight feet tall and the three units together run over nine feet wide, I wanted a very light color (stain) so as not to overwhelm the narrow room they are in (formal dining room that will be converted to a small study). I decided to have a clear satin varnish and leave the pine rough, lumber mill stampings and all. The result is an excellent shelf (we speak from years of book shelving experience!), because the slight bit of roughness helps keep the books in place. None of that scooching around to the back of the shelf like on some over-varnished/stained surfaces.



Here's a small portion of the now filled shelves, can't get far enough back to give the floor to ceiling effect:

I had hoped to have some room to house some of my pottery. I was only lucky to get the very top shelf to put some of my pitchers up:


Last book I bought:
Updated: See No Evil by Robert Baer and The Constant Gardener by le Carre. See a pattern here?

Big Trouble: A Murder in a Small Western Town Sets Off a Struggle for the Soul of America by J. Anthony Lukas and Che Guevera: A Revolutionary Life by Jon Lee Anderson and Che Guevara

Last book I read:
Am re-reading Little Drummer Girl by John le Carre, spies, intrigue, masquerade--the problem of identity.

Five books that mean a lot to me:
An impossible task, but for now:
Train to Pakistan by Kushwant Singh, Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera, Trinity by Leon Uris, Waterland by Graham Swift, Three Farmers on Their Way to a Dance by Richard Powers.