Too Many Books?

I hope you weren't frightened when the earth shook and thunder rolled as I wrote the title of this entry. As much as it must make my mother roll over in her grave and shake her head over her son, I have come to the conclusion that, yes, we have too many books. Coming as I do from a long line of voracious readers, and being married to another reader as voracious as myself, it's difficult to admit that we have an oversupply of books, but I have to reluctantly admit that it's true.

Earlier today, I drove down to the local Ikea store and purchased two large, new bookshelves. This action was necessitated by my realization that it was becoming dangerous to walk past the towering piles of books on top of existing bookshelves, on the floors, and in most unoccupied corners of the house...if one of those piles were to fall over, it could be fatal. Despite our frequent donations of old books to other members of the family, to the local library, and to various friends, we have become overrun with books.

Well...

I brought the two new bookshelves home, assembled them, put them in place, and filled them with books...

And we still have piles of books on the floors.

There are exactly 35 bookshelves of various sizes in this house (not counting the small one on my desk). I have no idea how many books are sitting on those shelves, but the number is certainly enormous...and there are, at the moment, four books from the library on my nightstand.

When we moved back to the U.S. from Germany in 1990, the movers who packed up our household goods were amazed at the number of books we were shipping...and even more at the percentage of them that were cookbooks. And that was seventeen years ago!

If you've been reading this blog for any length of time, you already know that we love to read. In my opinion, the more you read and learn, the better prepared you are to recognize B.S. when it's thrown at you, whether by your government, your church, or anyone else. Reading is one of the most important things you can do for yourself and for your children, and so from that perspective, it's tough to have too many books.

Unless they're piled high enough to fall on you.

Have a good day. Read something. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo