Books

I am quite pleased with my purchases at the Coralville Public Library book sale today.  So please I may go back tomorrow to get a few more.  Several of the books are Dean Koontz – one of the few male authors I want to own the entire collection of.   Patterson use to be in that group but he fell by the wayside.  John Saul is tentatively in that group though I have to admit some of his books really, really bother me.  John Sandford was in the group but he also kind of fell by the wayside.  It leaves Saul, Koontz, Little, Crichon, and Benchley.  There are some male authors I will own who have some excellent books I really liked and others I didn’t care so much for.  Stephen King is an example of this – some of his books like The Shining, Deloris Claiborne, Gerald’s Game, etc., I will own but others I didn’t care for such as The Cell that I have no desire to add to my collection.

Female artists include Kava, Gerritson, Barr and tentatively Gardner.  I like some of the latter author’s work but some of it doesn’t quite make the grade.  I’m sure there are more considering my book list is over 7  typewritten pages long.  As with the guys, there are favorite books by some authors I will own but others that I don’t care to.  Sandra Brown is an example here.

As I told my sister when we went out for supper/drinks last night – I want to own 1000+ books.  Someday I want to have a house that has a den with ceiling to floor bookcases full of my favorite books.  When I buy the house then maybe I will buy the rest of King’s (and others) collections. 

Books are solace for me.  I can retreat into one for hours without getting up more than to refill my tea glass or go to the restroom.  I prefer finishing a book in one sitting but that isn’t, of course, always possible.  When I was a child, I read to escape what I considered a rotten life (probably most kids think their life is rotten at one point or another).  Books were key to a world so bigger than anything I could imagine and which I wanted to be involved in. 

My mother use to own dozens of books and I didn’t understand how she could keep collecting them.  Their presence only irritated me when we would move and I’d have to carry box load after box load up and down stairs from our old home to wherever our new one was.  Then I grumbled galore.  But she loved books and I so love her for it because she passed that on to me.  She said it was me taking after my father who read a book a day but I think it was a combination of the two of them. 

I love books.  My son doesn’t understand it yet but I know he will as soon as he settles into a permanent residence.  I know this because, like me, he keeps lists and lists of books he read – someday he will want to own the ones dear to his heart…I see it in him.

It was devastating to me to have to get rid of the books I collected in Florida.  I was so close to completing sets and loved going into my little den to see the bookcases full.  How exciting to have to buy a new bookcase because the old is bulging at the seams!!  How thrilling now to have books waiting for a new bookcase to call home.  I do think I will hit the booksale again tomorrow – there were so many more books I wanted but couldn’t carry…I only had so much strength!  I only buy hardbounds for my permanent collection – paperbacks are not something I worry about keeping.  Some good books only come out in paperbacks which is a challenge – sometimes I’ll make an exception for them.