Bibliophile

As I'm writing this I'm staring at about, oh, one-tenth of my library collection. I can't even begin to explain how incredibly giddy I am to finally see my books on our huge bookshelf. See, my mom's family are book people. Over the years my grandparents have amassed an astonishing collection of hardbound books, most of them pre-1940, first editions, rare, or signed. When my grandmother passed away, I learned that I was to inherit their book collection. Since then containers of books have started trickling back to Texas after visits to Ohio. Mom kept them safe for me, and now that I have my own house and tons of room, they're slowly making their way here.

Dave and I unpacked 220 books the other evening. He's as much of a bibliophile as I am--actually more. He reads all the time. Me, well, I write all the time. I have a rule that I never read any non-research materials while writing a manuscript. Just the thought of subconscious influence and/or borrowing makes me cringe. It happens to writers all the time. Usually we catch it in edits but god help you if it makes it to your editor. Yikes!

So anyways... We unpack the books, marvel at the smell of the paper, the aged tinge on the bindings. It's lovely. I smile every time I find a book with a publish date earlier than 1900. I laugh when I uncover the tattered copy of Little Women that I read at least twenty times during middle school. Dave gasps when he finds a copy of Summer of the Monkeys. As I near the bottom of the last crate, I grow sad. It's been like Christmas, you know?

Dave and I now realize that we desperately need more book cases. We still have boxes and boxes of books in the garage (paper backs mainly, lots of newer fiction and dozens of EMS and college textbooks) and hundreds, hell, maybe even thousands of books still coming from Ohio.

I'm beginning to realize that Dave-O and I really need to come up with a cataloguing and shelving system for the books. Right now they're just sort of haphazardly placed on the shelves. I haven't the slightest idea how to approach this issue. My first thought was the good ole Dewey Decimal system--but then I realized that I would prefer to separate the books by frequency of use. You know, like, my favorite paperbacks on easily accessible shelves. So I don't know. We'll play it by ear I guess.

And now I'm thinking that I should check with my homeowner's insurance policy about the books. I haven't the foggiest idea what this part of the collection is worth. Sigh. Yet another entry for my impossibly long To-Do list.

Speaking of which--I should really get back to work. I received my edits for Illicit Bargain last night. The copy is fairly clean so there aren't any major revisions/edits needed. I can't tell you how giddy that makes me. I loathe edits, lol. I hate them so much that I tend to procrastinate. Of course, Dave knows this so he's been bugging me all day about getting my edits done and sent back to Kelli K, my editor. Yeah. He can be annoying sometimes, but he says he does it out of love. Yeah. Right.

So to keep the love of my life, fire of my loins off my case, I'm signing off for the night. Do svidanya!