Choosing Books

June 22, 2021

Choosing Books

I can't imagine a home without an overflow of books. The point of books is to have way too many but to always feel you never have enough, or the right one at the right moment, but then sometimes to find you'd longed to fall asleep reading the Aspern Papers, and there it is.”

― Louise Erdrich, Books and Islands in Ojibwe Country

I grew up surrounded by books.

I started reading at age 2. When I was 2-and-a-half years old, my mother -- who also started reading at age 2, and also hasn't stopped -- went to the hospital to have my younger sister. She left me a note. The note said that I should mind my father, that she'd hidden a gift for me to find each day she was gone, and that she would be back soon with my baby sister.

My father's father was also a great reader, and had floor-to-ceiling bookshelves on almost every wall of his house, packed two-deep, which I loved experiencing on our twice-weekly visits or so.

I have around 1,500 books at my regular place.

Which books to bring to the "summer serenity cottage," the 1906 house I'm renting for peace, quiet, and interior decorating, in order to escape intolerable roof noise and vibration at my regular place?

My book selection approach was two-fold:

what books would I furnish a local B&B with, to highlight my Great Lakes decorating theme, ground the location, and expound upon my blue-and-white and green-and-white color scheme, and,
what will I want to read or re-read during this summer of peace and quiet and of dreaming into existence the new Golden Age of empathy and equality, courage and compassion, liberty and love?

I also considered the fact that the owner of the cottage I'm renting is German, and perhaps I'll want to refresh my German a bit, having lived in Hamburg for 4 years.

An additional pre-move concern: I was not looking to do a big move, but a minimal move. This isn't a project about moving house for the summer, but about furnishing a cottage for the summer.

So, I didn't move any bookshelves from my regular place, figuring I could buy some for the cottage if need be or just use the surfaces available such as the beachy coffee table I bought, the beachy end table I brought, the radiator ledges, and of course the floors!

Packing the books I selected was relatively simple: I put several books into each of several boxes, and then filled each box with lighter items on top of the books, such as fresh green towels and fresh white washcloths I bought for the cottage, and laundered in advance, so that no box would be too heavy.

An additional post-move concern: the cottage has turned out to be more humid than expected on hot humid days, and books do not like damp. Pages are becoming wavy!

A post-move benefit: I found I needed a way to prop open double-hung windows that wouldn't stay up and that posed a safety hazard when they crashed down, and books did the trick until I could find other methods -- window blog post to come!

With these book photos below, you can also see some of how I've furnished the cottage so far; more details on art and furnishings and before/after to come!

(You can see sweet Jorji the cat in some of the below, too!)

Cottage living room books:

Cottage dining room books -- this space is to some extent still a work in progress:

Cottage guest room books -- the guest room is still a work in progress, and the books include poetry and themes of love, as well as a theme of my alma mater. In particular for when my mother comes to visit, I may add some mystery, sci-fi, and Afro-futurism:

Cottage kitchen books:

Cottage home office books -- including books I have selected for the book + film club I coordinate for my beloved former college classmates women's group, part of the Harvard Class of 1990; we call the club RADAR - Radcliffe Arts Discussion And Roundtable; we focus on women's stories, black women's stories, and currently also themes of semi-utopia, internationalism, and books-within-books or movies-within-movies; and we interact within our shared vision of fun, intellectualism, and kindness:

Cottage bedroom books: [see bedroom Before/After here]

Cottage additional books -- including one on recent culinary history I picked up at a local yard sale and will give to a dear friend who used to be an adjunct professor with me at a local culinary school, now closed, and who had just been talking about arugula: