The Only Time I’ve Regretted Being a Book Lover

My house, being over twenty-years-old, needed new floors. The hardest aspect of this remodeling wasn’t replacing the carpet with wood. It wasn’t the dust. It wasn’t every room in the house in disarray. It wasn’t moving furniture around.

It was boxing up all my books.

And I have a ton of books–in almost every room. I have a collection of my favorite fiction which includes classics and much science fiction and fantasy. I have a collection of spiritual books which includes various Bibles, a Koran, a Book of Mormon, devotionals, commentaries and books on various religions. I have a collection of graphic design books I use when I work on design projects.

But my biggest collection of books belongs to the creative writing/literature/reference category. When I lived in Cincinnati, I use to go to the warehouse sale held by Writer’s Digest books. They had a ton of books on writing at deep discounts. I have shelves dedicated to each of the following: writing children’s books; writing science fiction; writing poetry; writing screenplays; English and creative writing textbooks; Shakespeare; Old English literature; literature anthologies; short story collections; binders of my unpublished manuscripts (and friends’ unpublished manuscripts); and  several shelves on writing novels. It is my pride and joy.

A bookshelf itself is not heavy, but packed with books, it’s heftier than a silverback gorilla. So I collected empty boxes from the local Aldi store and carried them to the lower level while the main level of my house received a new floor.

Next, I dragged fifteen boxes of books on literature and creative writing from downstairs to re-shelving (see in-progress photo above).

For the first time, I wished they were all digital books.

Let me rescind that statement. As I re-shelved them, I realized I still needed to read many of them. I wanted to re-read many of them. I wanted to revisit On Writing by Stephen King, Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott and On Writing Well by William Zinsser. I wanted to brush up on my grammar Woe Is I by Patricia T. O’Conner and strengthen my composition with Elements of Style by Strunk and White.

So, while I grumbled as I carted the books up and down stairs, I ended up rediscovering a treasure–at least to a book lover–sitting right in front of me.

View my Consortium SF Series at Amazon.