How Does Your Library Grow?

I suppose I was a bit late falling in love with books. I don't recall being so very interested in picture books, not even Dr. Seuss or Beatrix Potter, for whom my appreciation grew later in life; of course there weren't so many picture books back then as there are now.  I did love A. A. Milne poems, some of which my mother or grandmother had us memorize as children. ("What is the matter with Mary Jane?") When my book garden did begin to grow, you might say I started small. I was about twelve when I began collecting those miniature hardback gift books trendy in the late 60s, about the size of Beatrix Potter's, most of which were given to me by friends. Charlie Brown  and Snoopy, Joan Walsh Anglund, they are now "worn, befingered little books" (a lovely phrase from Geothe), bearing the prints of many a grandchild.

The seeds of my truly literary book collection first began to sprout when I was in seventh grade reading and acting out parts of Tom Sawyer in English class and a friend apparently gave me a copy because here it is in my hand inscribed by Jan Rolph, a.k.a. Amy Lawrence. We also read Julius Caesar in that class of which I own an ancient copy with my adolescent illustrated "signature" inside the front cover done in the blue ink of the Scheaffer fountain pen I habitually used back then. I think it was in eighth grade that I purchased the copies of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogy I read and reread, that still grace my shelves today. Twain, Shakespeare, Tolkien. Not a bad start, I'd say.

It was when I became a mother, during my twenties that I remembered all the books my elementary school teachers had read to us, books I dearly wished to introduce to my children, for it was chapter books I first truly loved. I went to library sales and thrift stores; it wasn't how they looked that mattered. I felt like Jay Parini, a poet and professor of English at Middlebury College, in his essay, Other People's Books:"It's not only the physical aspects of books that attract me, of course. In fact, I rarely buy first or elegant editions, however much I like to glance at them; good reading copies, in hardback or a decent paperback, are just fine." Charlotte's Web, The Little Lame Prince, My Father's Dragon, Mr. Popper's Penguins, Stuart Little, Gone-Away Lake, A Wrinkle in Time, Island of the Blue Dolphins, Five Children and It, Tuck Everlasting. I also kept my eye out for used or inexpensive copies of favorites I had chosen from library shelves and read myself throughout my junior high and high school days. A Lantern in Her Hand, Jane Eyre, Tess of the Durbervilles, So Big, David Copperfield, Treasure Island, The Prince and the Pauper, The Once and Future King.  And then I had books from college English classes I kept, such as Shakespeare's Complete Works.

Books proliferated like weeds, as books do. We needed a place to put them. These were early days in our marriage and our first apartment book shelves consisted of stacked orange crates painted bright yellow, just like Helene Hanff had--must have been an early 1970s thing. Then came some boxy modules of dark stained 2X12s my husband crafted that sat on the floor, that our one-year-old could sit herself inside.

As our my-husband-builds-all-our-own-furniture era continued, an entire wall unit made of unfinished 2X6s drilled with holes and held together with pieces of inch-thick dowel came into being. Plenty of space on this rickety structure for both my books and Steve's collection of Beatles LPs.

We finally "splurged" on some free-standing oak shelves but these soon overflowed. We eventually relegated them to the basement and attic when one of our sons-in-law built me a real library in our small front sitting room: two whole walls of built-in custom shelves from floor to ceiling painted sparkling spartan white. One of my quiet joys in life is arranging and rearranging these shelves, going through my books, adding, taking away, browsing, categorizing, regrouping, beautifying, making ever more meaningful. This is my library today, photo taken by my daughter Lili.

Still the garden grows, spreading to every room in the house. In my guest room/office I have shelves of my favorite writing books: If You Want to Write by Brenda Ueland, The Elements of Style by E. B. White, On Writing Well by William Zinsser. In my bedroom my nightstand constantly overflows with current reading, and a shelf on the wall near my bed displays a small collection of slender volumes I want to keep close to me: Mere Christianity by C. S. Lewis, Humility and Absolute Surrender by Andrew Murray, Born Yesterday, the play by Garson Kanin, Flannery O'Connor's Prayer Journal, One Hundred and One Famous Poems,  James Allen's As a Man Thinketh, The Imitation of Christ, and a ragged 1946 The Return to Religion by Henry C. Link that was my Dad's and bears his beautiful signature.

There are atlases and art books in the living room, especially nice editions of favorites on the mantle, books on culture and politics in Steve's office space, baskets full of picture books in the attic and grandchildren's room, and the old oak shelves in the basement are fast filling up with extra copies of the best books for my Little Free Library.

When I visit someone's home for the first time it is their library I am most interested in, and I love it when visitors to my house are magnetically drawn toward mine. The books people choose to read, collect, and furnish their shelves and coffee tables and mantles with often show what they find valuable or interesting or worthwhile or beautiful or important. In one glance at a person's book collection you may find you have a new friend with whom there are unlimited subjects to discuss.

Parini goes on, "What interests me about other people's books is the nature of their collection. A personal library is an X-ray of the owner's soul. It offers keys to a particular temperament, an intellectual disposition, a way of being in the world. Even how the books are arranged on the shelves deserves notice, even reflection. There is probably no such thing as complete chaos in such arrangements.”

Perhaps my favorite shelves are those filled with books I loved as a girl, and as a young adult, books I continue to reread and  treasure. And then of course I have a shelf piled high with books by my very favorite authors to date: Charlotte Bronte, C. S. Lewis, Flannery O'Connor, and Roger Scruton.  Since I began it in 2006 a good chunk of shelf space is  now packed with volumes collected for my ongoing Lifetime Reading Plan. (See the book by that name by Fadiman and Major.)

I do go through my library periodically and give some away. It has to be an extra or one that I feel has no sentimental value, beauty, or worth at all. But it's not easy. To paraphrase G. K. Chesterton, even bad books have worth, if only to show us why people would write it or why people would read it and think it was good. Often if I feel like discarding a book, I plan to read it again first, just to make sure. On visiting the home library of Anthony Powell, Parini quotes his friend, '"I can't give a book up, if it's a book that meant something to me,"' he said. "I always imagine I'll go back to it one day. I rarely do, but the intention is there, and I get a warm feeling among my books."'

What we love matters. What we read matters. How does your library grow? I hope it's in full bloom.