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- Saw a Facebook group about home libraries. People posting pictures of their super cool home libraries. I am drawn to this idea, but I’m a public librarian and I know that when I die no one will want my books. Or any of my other stuff. I know this because every day people bring boxes and boxes of book donations, many from their recently deceased relatives. And I’m not going to go sit alone in a room in my house to read.
- Still…a home library…would be sweet
- I am slightly conflicted. Like maybe 15% conflicted
It is a funny thing, a home library. Years back it was just cool to know you could go to a shelf and look at some book you found interesting, even if you knew you probably wouldn’t read it.
Sometimes it was something you thought you just might not ever see again, although Internet bookselling changes the calculus on that.
In thee past few years I’ve been pretty ruthless, by my standards, and thinned out the shelves. Then I’ll think I should go look at some book and then realize it is gone.
And yeah, I doubt anybody would really get excited about my books, so it isn’t about hording metaphorical gold. But knowing you might one day ditch your Calvin and Hobbes collection, or the 1963 Arkham House Lovecraft collection, reinforces the ephemeral nature of it all. Our shelves and our selves should be in a constant state of change. So appreciate it all right now, and feel free to rearrange and change out anything.
That said, I wish I had not cleared out my two books on Wabi Sabi (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wabi-sabi)