This week: Bookshelved Edited by: fyn  
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Here's one of my bad habits: when I go to someone's house, I head straight to their bookshelf. ~~Mark Frauenfelder
Guilty!
Behind every writer stands a very large bookshelf.~~Justin Cronin
Or many of them:I have nineteen floor-to-ceiling bookshelves.
'Goodnight Moon' is a staple of any nursery bookshelf. So, too, are 'Harold and the Purple Crayon' and 'Madeline.' These books are just as much a part of mainstream reading culture as 'The Catcher in the Rye,' and they are passed down from generation to generation. ~~Rebecca Serle
I don't have 'Goodnight Moon', but I do have 'Harold and the Purple Crayon' and 'Madeline' from when I was a child.
“I'm not strange, weird, off, nor crazy, my reality is just different from yours.”
~~ Lewis Carroll
Yup!
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A Christmas present (delayed, but in the works (so to speak)) is an entire wall (18 feet long) of built-in bookshelves surrounding the front window which will have a cozy window seat. I should, in theory, then be able to finally unbox the rest of the boxes clogging up the basement. The planning was going along just fine, thank you very much, until my hubby asked me, oh so casually, "So which books will go where?" Oh dear.
Several of the shelves (four, I hope) will have lightly-tinted glass doors on them. I need these because I really love OLD books. Like my two-volume Virtue and Yorston Imperial Edition of The Works of William Shakspere from 1870. Or the (also) two volumes of The Man Who Laughs by Victor Hugo from 1888. Then there's my 1858 volume of The Poetical Works of Adelaide A. Procter with an introduction by Charles Dickens. There are many more. Ones no one has (probably) ever heard of like The Nurnberg Stove by Louisa De La Rame or The Hill of Stones by S. Weir Mitchell (1882).
One my dad gave to my mother, Bonjour Tristesse by Francoise Sagan and inscribed, "To the girl whose love I'll always want, from the boy whose love you'll always have. Your Bobby" Every gift thereafter, in reference to those words, he simply signed them 'Still.' A first edition of The Charles Dickens Birthday Book edited by his eldest daughter with illustrations by his youngest daughter that my great-grandmother bought for her daughter, my Great Aunt Mary, when she was born in 1882. All my tattered and well-loved A.A. Milnes including my most favorite 6th birthday present, Now We Are Six. One of my favorite poems from the book is called 'Vespers.' There's a signed copy of it in both the Queen's Dollhouse Library at Windsor Castle and, in miniature, in one of the dollhouses that belonged to 'The Queen Mum.' (There's a whole other story about that day and The Queen Mum, for the memoir and another day!) I have all the original Pooh books. My dad was friends with the 'real' Christopher Robin, hence my name being Robin.
Now I have all these old books in piles on my desk, I'm in a wistful mood and feeling a bit like I've stepped back in time. And that was only one shelf. It's like that shelf is like a microcosm of my life. Perhaps each shelf is like another page or chapter in the 'Book of Me.'
*Stepping away for a cup of coffee, some space, and a tissue.*
That was a good idea ... walking away from my desk for a bit! Ah ... but then I was curious. Just how many books do I have. Silly me starts counting and 537 books later, I realize that I can't stop and I've only just started. So, final tally. 3146 books. Good grief. And that does not include the 16 boxes taped up in the basement. Oh. Wait. Make that 3189 books. (I forgot the bookshelf in the bathroom. Everyone does have one of those, right? Oh. Well, so I'm excessively weird! *smile* That also does not include all the books I keep stocked for all my authors as I have a closet full of for fulfilling Amazon orders.
Think I'm going to need a bigger house!
Taking notes as I wandered (and keeping count!) I have every single Nora Roberts, J.D. Robb, Sidney Sheldon, Laura Ingalls Wilder, Erich Segal, Ursala LeGuin, Bertrice Small, Ayn Rand, Robert Heinlein, Clive Cussler, Ann McCaffrey, Anneliese Brand, Madeleine L'Engle, Mara McBain, Mark Twain, Elizabeth Adler, James Michner, Tricia O'Malley, Jean Auel, Gabriel García Márquez, Roald Dahl, Og Mandino, and Dawn Merriman book. Mostly hardcovers. All the 'banned' Dr. Seuss, in fact, I'm pretty sure I have every book on all the banned book lists. If it was covered in any of the numerous American Lit, European Lit, or South American Lit classes I've taken, I have them all too. If it has been deemed a 'classic', I probably have it. Many books by C. S. Lewis, Lewis Carroll, Stephen King, 'The Giver' quartet, Sylvia Plath, Elie Wiesel, DuPrau, Orwell and Aldous Huxley. At least six different books that I have multiple copies of. The Shipping House News by Annie Proulx --Oh, I love that book. Need to reread that one again. Came across SO MANY 'old friends' I need to read again. One is Warday by Whitley Strieber and James Kunetka. Another is Enchantress From the Stars by Sylvia Engdahl. Oh, and Richard Bach's Jonathan Livingston Seagull! All I want to do now is curl up in a corner for an eon or so and read!
*Gets off the phone with hubby who got a big laugh out of my newsletter subject. Then, he had to go and remind me of the twenty or so boxes of books in the attic over the garage that I couldn't get to if I tried. That probably ups the grand total to over 4000 books.
There isn't a book here that I haven't read. Most of them numerous times. Maybe I was a librarian in a past life. I grew up in houses that had libraries in them. One even had the classic sort of two-story library with the moving ladder, comfy chairs, and a fireplace right out of an old movie set in a manor-type house. (That was awesome!) It even had a secret room behind one of the shelves that was actually a door! What a great reading nook!
Back to what'll go where. I do not have a clue! Alphabetical by the author? All the hardcovers together? A total mish-mash? All the WDC authored books together or scattered about? By genre? A shelf or six of my absolute favorites? Kids books on lower shelves. That's a certainty. The grands and greats all love to read or be read to!
Poetry together but then so many poets also wrote books. Frost, John Donne, and, and, and.It is going to be quite the undertaking. Getting it all sorted. I can't wait!
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Maybe I really should!
Something of a shout-out to someone who surely owns even more books than I do!
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lexgoon writes: Let the festivities begin!!
🎄☃️🎁🌬️
(I used the wind-blown emoji because where I am, it gets very cold around the holidays.)
-Stormblade208❤️
PS, I will be writing a lot of stories about Christmas now that we’re officially in the holidays! Yay!!!🥳
GaelicQueen  says: A beautiful Christmas story about paying it forward and raising kids to feel the real joy of Christmas; not a time to see how much you get, but how much you give.
brom21  comments: I recall one Christmas where my mom did have much to spend on gifts. But God provided the perfect gift for my brother and I-a few action figures to each of us. We were totally jazzed!
I love your positive message and citing the true meaning of the holiday. More importantly, it is the time of the year to share the Gospel with friends and family. Now that I am an adult, I am at that stage where I am not too avid about what I get. This year is different though. I have asked for a resource called the Christian Writer's Market. It is thee premiere written commodity for all genres with the Christian appeal. God bless you and have a great Christmas!
Brandiwyn🎶  made my day by writing: This is possibly the Best Newsletter Article Ever. Thank you for sharing it. 💜
Sumojo  did too!:Your newsletter this week warmed my heart. You have made me think about the true meaning of Christmas. I hope you and yours have a wonderful one this year as I know you will.
Cheers Sue
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For Authors: January 04, 2023 Issue [#11741]
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