Thursday, August 04, 2011

What do your books say about you?

Recently I had the opportunity to go through the 'library' of a friend who died for the purpose of relocating her books to good homes. If you have ever had this kind of experience you will know that carrying heavy boxes of books to the car is the easiest part of the process. Sorting through years worth of reading is the challenge.
How do you evaluate a person's library? How do you determine what book is worth passing along to a new generation of readers that will lift them into the heights of heaven, and what books
should burn in the pit of publishing hell for all eternity? Okay, maybe that is slightly overstated.

Well as I was going through her books I felt like an intellectual voyeur. I was getting the chance to see what my friend had been thinking about, and what interested her the most. After all, she paid good money on a meager income to acquire these books. They told me a lot about her.

Then I started wondering what my books say about me. Certainly they tell a story, but what story do they tell? What book am I spending my hard earned money buying so that I can fill my mind with their juicy morsels? Would I be embarrassed for you to see my collection?

What do your books say about you?

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