Let me just get this out of the way - I have almost 2000 books. As in, books with paper pages. If you've been to my house, you've probably seen them. I've had several houses in the last 15 years and the bulk of them have traveled with me (movers HATE. ME.) from location to location. Ninety-nine percent of them went to Hungary with me when my family relocated there for three years. In our current location I have my very first library. Not an office with bookshelves, not a guest room with bookshelves - a freaking library. For the first time since my book "collecting" started I have every single volume out on a shelf. And it's glorious.
I hear two things when people see them all for the first time. First, I receive a "Holy *insert multiple-exclamations here*." Next, I
ALWAYS get the question, "Have you read them all?!" Put simply - no. I have read a lot of them but many of my volumes are old and pretty. And I like pretty things. So I buy them and then I get busy and they sit there as a decoration. But
why not read them? They're beautiful and they smell of lives lived and memories made. They have words in them, people. Words. The magical epoxy that bonds us all.
I read an article a few weeks ago about a woman so deliciously ambitious,
she read a book from every independant country in the world - all 196 of them - in one year. What an amazing idea! I was thrilled, overwhelmed and, frankly, envious when I heard of her undertaking.
So, here's the deal. I'm going to read them - all of 1900+ of them. It's going to take years and there are going to be times that I seriously regret making this commitment. And, just in case you're wondering, if I haven't read it in the last 10 years, I'm going to read it again. Posting the books in my library will be a exposing - like willingly showing guests my medicine cabinet. It's not all literature, folks, but it's words. Glorious, glorious words.
