books. tomes. volumes.

I heart books.

I like old books with faded covers.

I love used books with inscriptions inside addressed to people who are not me.

I like borrowed books.

And novels signed and dated by authors I have never met.

Even more so do I love the ones signed by authors for whom I have stood in line and waited with friends to listen to the authors read aloud from their own writings.

I like the smell and the crisp crisp crispness of a book purchased just off the shelf, third from the rack, touched by no one but myself and the person stocking the bookstore’s shelves.

We are always reading books here.

Listening to books.

Browsing through books.

Beside my bed an Annie Dillard novel from the library (can you believe it?) that I have not yet read sits right on top of the true story I just finished entitled First Comes Love, Then Comes Malaria.

In the car, Bud, Not Buddy is patiently waiting at chapter five for our next drive.

You know where David Sedaris is sequestered.  (I finished Holidays on Ice and am moving on to Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim.)

The problem is – we have a few less bookshelves at our new home than at our former home.

I did dramatically downsize our book collection.  I judiciously trashed, donated and sold excess books.  (Thanks to Tyler, selling books on amazon is becoming quite the lucrative spare change-maker for us.)

But at the end of all that judicious trashing, donating and selling – we were still left with a plethora of books.

I filled the school room shelves.  Loaded down the kids’ book racks.  Overflowed the one hall bookshelf.

And then I had to get creative.

I turned a favorite little black bench from my room as a kid into a poetry-only collection of books in our now-spacious foyer.  (I love the word “foyer”.  It’s just a charming word, isn’t it?)

I have stacked books all through our house.

Under a lamp by the bed.

And under a lamp in the foyer.

I’m fond of mantle stacks of books.

Chosen sometimes for their size

and sometimes for their color

and sometimes for their theme.

I shift these collections as I discover a new book or want to rearrange a mantle or for whatever reason occurs to me at the time.

Right now, my favorite little pile of books is in the dining room atop one of my favorite pieces of furniture.

The furniture was made from the original siding from my family’s Civil War-era farmhouse and the books are all Teddy Roosevelt – Kevin’s favorite man of history.

I don’t know why, but I like the way it all adds up.

I long for more bookshelves but I actually like the way books scattered throughout our home gives the written word a place of importance.

A sense of value.

A work of beauty.

Just another way to demonstrate to our children that words are powerful

and worthwhile and delightful.