See this box?



It was a moving box from our move from Minneapolis to the Seattle-area in 1999. The reason it was never unpacked was because it was full of books.



Books and book shelves have been a point of contention in our marriage since um, we were married. Stephen reads books then gets rid of them. He does not understand why people would keep books unless it was a dictionary but even that is moot, in his opinion, as these days one can use an online dictionary.

I, on the other hand, love books. Love them! I was a varicious reader most of my life. As a child, I would sneak flashlights into my bed or lie in bed with my head at the foot of the bed to get the light from the hall so I could read well past my bedtime. As an adult, I would read on the train, subway, bus. I would read while walking from the train, subway, bus to my building and right up to my desk.

I also believe that if a book is really good, it is worth keeping to be read again and again. I had a fine collection of books that I kept in boxes as Stephen really did not like book shelves. He thinks they look messy and sloppy. So my books stayed in little piles under our bed.

When we moved here from Minneapolis, I whittled down my books to just one box. That box. For the eight years we lived in the other house, that box remained mostly untouched in a corner of the master bedroom closet. When we bought this house, I did go through it and squeezed in a few more books. Oh, and this box did not represent all of my books. I did have some piled under our bed.

Anyway, I decided that I wanted a bookshelf for my books and when I was at IKEA last week, I saw this tall, narrow bookcase and I knew it would fit perfectly in the corner of our bedroom, in a location that Stephen would not necessarily have to see it all the time (for instance, when he was lying in bed watching tv, it would not be in his line of vision).

So, today, I went back to IKEA and bought it and he assembled it and stuck it in the corner. I bought out my box of books and gathered the others that I had in piles under my bed and started going through them.

I must admit that there are a couple that I really don't think I need anymore but I just cannot get rid of. For instance, "The Mom-To-Mom Guide to the Baby Years" published in 2002 and updated in 2005 (with a new title). Of course I am keeping them because I am a "contributing editor".




My collection also includes two books that are personally autographed to me by the authors. One is OS/2 Warp - Administrator's Survival Guide (out of print of course - I mean who among you have even heard of OS/2 besides former IBMers and anyone who was in IT in the 90's). I worked closely with one of the authors back in my old life as an "Engineer - Financial Technologies" (I also found a stash of my old business cards in that box).


The other one that is personally autographed is The about. com Guide to Owning a Dog: From Sit and Stay to Positive Play--A Complete Canine Manual:

Even though Krista is no longer the About Guide, I hope she still gets money if anyone buys this book. If not, don't buy it! Ok, let me check on that and get back to you...

Ok, so here is my bookshelf. I need to buy more shelves (they are $8 a piece!) next time I go to IKEA as clearly I have more books than I realized.