I Love Books and Reading

I can’t imagine a life without books. Ever since I first learned to read, I’ve been in love with them. Partly it was because my parents were both readers, and also we didn’t have a TV then.

We had a radio, and they listened to the news and programs like Fibber McGee and Molly, Father Knows Best and other shows like Inner Sanctum Mysteries, which were frightening to my brother and I as we sat on the steps to listen until one of our parents caught us and sent us back to bed. It wasn’t until I was fifteen we got a TV, and although I watched it sometimes, I still read. So many times after supper, my mother would nag me to get started on the dishes, and I’d always say something like “Just a minute,” because I couldn’t stop reading right then.

Leftover Books

          I pack the leftover books from the sale.

            Leftovers from the lives of my mother and father.

            Leftovers no one wanted, not even strangers.

            I remember these books as bright splashes of color

            mitigating all that green -

            our celery green shelves, celery green walls,

            gray-green carpet, and a big over-stuffed chair

            aged to an indeterminate color and texture;

            a perfect place to hibernate Sunday afternoons

            when the snow buried our little cape cod,

            and boots melted by the back door.

            Jerry played “The Flight of the Bumblebee,”

            the music undulating, mixing with warm brown smells

            of pot roast with onions, potatoes and carrots.

            Dad did the cooking Sundays,

            ahead of his time in gender correctness,

            while Mom ripening with another bibliophile,

            soon to be baby sister, Cathi, read and dozed nearby.

            Elaine and Suzanne cut out paper dolls,

            as Christ on his Crucifix looked down on

                        The Silver Chalice,

                        The Golden Bough,

                        Main Street,

                        A Tree Grows in Brooklyn,

            and us.

            There were two walls of books -

            a time line of books going back to my parents’ youth

                        Girl of the Limberlost,

                        O’ Pioneers,

                        The Life of James A. Garfield,

                        The Pickwick Club,

            and stretching forward to my future.

            In those days I’d snuggle deep

            into the comfort of that over-stuffed chair,

            galloping the plains on Wildfire, Flicka and Thunderhead

            or solving mysteries with Nancy Drew.

            In that chair, the future was only a nebulous vision

            of a ranch with hundreds of beautiful horses.

           

            And so I sort these books, the pile of books

            I find I cannot part with growing higher and higher.

            Books from my past to add to

            the already overflowing shelves of my present,

            to be read someday in the future.

My grandmother's copy of the book.

As I wrote in the beginning, I can’t imagine a life without books. In fact, if I were ever accused of being a hoarder, it would probably be because of all the books I have and can’t bear to part with. Books that maybe I’ll read again or books that have sentimental value like Beautiful Joe an autobiography written by Marshall Saunders, and published in 1903.  It was in my grandmother’s bookcase and told the story of a dog. It’s a small book three and a half inches by six inches with 359 pages in all. It was a touching story about a dog named Beautiful Joe, and it ended sadly so I shed many tears over it. Someday I may even read this book again,, but for now I’ll just cherish it as one of the earlier books I read and one that belonged to my grandmother, who was a teacher before she got married and was no longer allowed to teach by the rules at that time.

Do you have a favorite book you can’t part with?

What books do you remember from your childhood?