When I was a child, my mother had a rather extensive collection of books.
But she didn’t always have a library — or even a bookshelf. In fact, as a young woman, she would buy used books and sell them back to the secondhand bookstore once she’d read them. The difficulty however, was that she read so many books she began to lose track of what she had or hadn’t read. She found herself buying books, taking them home; reading the first few pages only to realize she had already read them.
So she started keeping her books and her collection began to grow.
Now, my mother read science fiction and fantasy novels almost exclusively (and does so to this day). And she is such a prolific reader that by the time I was old enough to read the spines on the shelves we had more speculative fiction than any bookstore I’ve ever visited.
My mother taught me the joy, and the value, of reading and her library has left an indelible mark on my life.
Photo by @thecasualceltic
“There is more treasure in books than in all the pirate’s loot on Treasure Island”
