A Reader's Celebration

I am going through my books and

re-reading them and deciding

which ones to keep and which ones

to sell or donate so that my children

won't have to do that when I am gone.

Years ago I did that and settled on

keeping only three of my favorite authors:

Maud Hart Lovelace,

Booth Tarkington,

and Ed McBain/ Evan Hunter.

A while back I decided to give

all my Lovelace books to 

my oldest daughter 

who shares my love

of the Betsy-Tacy series.

I also gave her my set of

Betsy, Tacy, and Tib dolls

that I had purchased

30 years ago.

I sold my entire set of

the "Matthew Hope" series

by Ed McBain on eBay

a while back.

I will soon be listing my entire set

of the "87th Precinct" mystery series

also by Ed McBain.

Ed McBain and Evan Hunter are

one and the same person.

The books he wrote as Evan Hunter

are all so different.

I have to re-read them all first

before I will be ready to sell them.

I am working my way through all of

Booth Tarkington's books currently.

His earliest works were so

indicative of the era!

The early 1900's when skirts were long

and a glance could mean anything!

My favorite of his, of course,

is the Penrod series.

I've asked my daughter

to prop one of them on my chest

someday when I am in my casket

to make it look like I fell asleep reading it.

I used to read the Penrod books to my two

youngest children, hoping that it would

add to their vocabularies!

Tarkington had such a way with words!

I have always read to all four

of our children.

I have my grandmother's

set of encyclopedias from 1910

in which Czar Alexander

was still in power in Russia!

I love the illustrations.

I think I may have influenced my

youngest daughter to be a reader.

I recently took her eight tall bookcases

when they moved into their new home to

hold her many, many books.  

(And I don't think she got them all on the shelves!)

Both of her children that she is home-schooling

are also avid readers.

My oldest daughter is also a reader.

She and her husband used to read to all

three of their children at bedtime.

And now she works at their local library

and loves it!

She has an actual library in their home

with several tall shelves full of books.

I think I already have told you I loved books

since I was very young.

I remember going to our local library,

checking out ten books

(because the librarian limited me!)

and reading at least two of them on the

walk back home!

My dad had a huge unabridged dictionary

in his study.  I used to read it for fun!

When we lived in Yuma after I got married

I discovered a free Book Exchange

in one of the stores and was able to

amass quite a collection of

John D. MacDonald's Travis McGee series.

I outgrew that maybe twenty years ago.

When I first started my store, I created

a free Book Exchange

in a small room there.

Unfortunately, 90% of the books that

people brought in were "romance"

novels or Reader's Digest condensed books

or old sets of encyclopedias.

After five or six years I decided I needed

the room for furniture and tried to

donate as many as I could.

But, sadly, that 90% went out with the trash.

It broke my heart, but it had to be done!

Books are such treasures!

I do my reading at night

while I soak in my claw-foot tub.

If I have to sit in a waiting room

for any reason, I bring along a book to read.

No tablet or computer can compare

with the physical action of actually

turning a page...

I love to read!