Posted on 07/18/2013 11:58:56 AM PDT by InvisibleChurch
We had books in my home when I was growing up. The very first books that I owned where “Little Golden Books”, and it seemed like every time we went to the grocery store, my mother would buy one for me and I learned to read from them with my mother’s help, well before starting school.
Then as I got older my father gave me his books, his copies of the very ones that he had read as a child – Moby Dick, The Swiss Family Robinson, Robinson Crusoe, 20 Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, Les Misérables (the novel not the musical), Last of the Mohicans and I treasure those well worn books and will eventually give them to my great nieces when they are old enough to appreciate them. And my father for many years had subscriptions to National Geographic and Popular Mechanics probably instilling in me a love for magazines as well as for books.
But I have to tell you the truth; we didn’t have any “real” bookcases when I was growing up. My dad did build a small simple one from some scrap lumber but it certainly was not very big or very stylish, and in total, we actually didn’t own all that many books. We moved quite often when I was a kid and we mostly lived in small apartments and to be frank I grew up rather poor. So buying hard cover books was a luxury, something that was a really special occasion, a special Christmas or Birthday or graduation gift. We had a set of Encyclopedias but they were used and some 20 + years old at the time (1970’s) and quite outdated in some respects but still useful, my father having found them in an apartment that he was cleaning out after a tenant moved out while he was working as a maintenance man and he save them from going to the dumpster, but I pretty much read them cover to cover.
My mother also loved to read and I remember her taking me to the public library as a young child. And we lived for many years in a neighborhood in Baltimore right on the AA county line and within walking distance, a bit of a hike but walkable, there was a big, beautiful, brand new public library. My mother and I went there often especially when I was a teenager during those hot summer months and we would spend hours browsing and checking out books together and sometimes sitting in the library to read for a time – it was a nice place to go in the summer as the Library was air conditioned but our second floor apartment wasn’t! On those hot summer days my mother introduced me to Dickens and Austin and the Brontë sisters and P. G. Wodehouse and Fitzgerald; Agatha Christie; the books she loved to read.
As an adult, even when I started making enough money to buy books, and I started buying lots of them, mostly classics and history books and several bookcases (OK cheap Ikea bookcases but still bookcases), I always had a library card and still frequented the library often. When I lived in Maryland I lived in two neighborhoods within a very short drive to several good public libraries and they had late evening and weekend hours including Sunday hours. And for a time I worked at the main branch of the Enoch Free Pratt Library in Baltimore and what a beautiful library that was.
Since moving to PA, I haven’t found a convenient library nearby with convenient hours – there just doesn’t seem to that many around here and many of them close at 5:00PM and are only open till 7 or 8 one day a week and are some are only open half days on Saturday and have no Sunday hours at all and with my work schedule, it makes it very difficult for me to get there.
Oh and when I downsized and moved from my house to an apartment, I sold my bookcases because I didn’t have room for them and needed the money, but I kept all my books – they are in boxes neatly stacked in the hall closet waiting for my next move to a bigger place with room for bookcases, even if they are cheap Ikea bookcases.
And I’m glad that my niece is taking her girls; a 6 year old and 3 5 year old triplets to the library. The girls love to read and they love going to the library. : )
I wuz gonna say a gun and a bible.
Then I saw the hint about furniture...
Still haven’t read the answer.
Yes. I've been in these homes. Something seems wrong when you first get there ... you're not sure what it is. It's just a feeling that something is not quite right. They've got the lovely furniture, fireplace, end tables, art on the wall, coffee table with magazines.
And then you realize there ARE NO BOOKS in the place. No bookcases, no books.
As an avid reader of books since childhood (not Kindle, not Nook, not audio books) I feel it intensely. For me, the home factor is lacking when there isn't a healthy stash of books in bookcases.
Maybe it's just me.
Yeah, there’s nothing creepier than that. I’ve not seen many but still most people i know have bookcases w books but they arent read. Mostly are decorations and others stay in the same spot everytime I visit ( I love looking through a person’s bookcases) i know people who dont read or listen to music. I just dont understand it.
I thought those two items would have struck a nerve with people but I see it hasn’t. I throw my support your way.
I have two or three in my workshop...they’re filled to the gills with gun books.
When I was a kid every house in our family (my parents, grand parents, aunts and uncles, cousins etc.) All had multiple book cases. Frequently Birthday presents and Christmas presents were new and used books.
Now, we the younger members of that family give Amazon Gift certificates or if we know someone wants a certain book we buy it from Amazon and have it sent directly.
Most of us would love to go to an actual book store to do our shopping but there are none that stock much. Mostly religious book stores are all that are near me.
I notice most of my friends who don't buy books have kids who do OK in school but never seem to excel.
Not in my library, so I don’t have to attempt to read it and then feel like a fool ;-).
“Mostly religious book stores are all that are near me.”
I quit visiting our local “religious” book stores when I noticed that they had a great selection of toe rings (with crosses, of course), but not even one KJV Bible. While there are many religious book stores, there are few Christian book stores.
do we really want them doing well by public school stanards?
“I have two or three in my workshop...they’re filled to the gills with gun books.”
I’m thinking you should be in Mensa :)
My initial guess was two nice, round boobs full of warm milk for the children in their infancy, so that they would grow up healthy until they could eat solid food.
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