The Joy of Collecting Books: A Personal Journey

By Elizabeth Prata

I blogged earlier in the week that I enjoyed attending the annual Book Fair put on by a literacy organization where the public can enter the well-organized warehouse and browse for books and take up to 100 of them for free.

I found some books for the school library, friends, and some for my own shelves.

I’ve been blessed with the opportunity to live in a nice apartment that has two bedrooms. I don’t need two bedrooms- I live small. However, the second bedroom is a blessing because I’ve always wanted a personal, home library. And now I have one!

One of my hobbies is collecting books. Searching for books, reading books, and living with books are separate things. Related, but separate. As far as searching goes, I like the thrill of the hunt. I almost found a first edition of Dune. A 1st edition of that science fiction book would bring in five figures. It turned out to be a first ‘book club’ edition, which is worth significantly less, but still a thrill to find. Or when I found a first edition of CS Lewis “Till We Have Faces”, worth about $200-400.

It’s an ‘Antiques Roadhouse’ sort of thing, where you come across a book at a yard sale that has an original Dali sketch inside, or a valuable first edition, or just THE book you’ve been wanting to read.

The other pleasure with books is organizing them. I use LibraryThing as an inventory software so I know which books I have and by what author etc. Very helpful since even though I have a good memory, I can’t remember all of them. So before I add one to my library I double check. Or after I get a few books, I add them tot he inventory. If there are any duplicates, I know which ones to give away!

Once I’ve obtained a book, and once I’ve inventoried it, I enjoy organizing the shelves. I have mine arranged by genre. Of the theological portion of my library, I have them arranged by topic and the commentaries I arranged in order of the Bible’s order.

Thus, Commentaries on Genesis start off the shelf and Revelation commentaries are at the other end. Missionary biographies are together, and the topics of heaven, grace, fearing God, prayer, and so on are also all together. I have one bookcase dedicated to the commentaries by MacArthur and his authored books that GTY has sent me or that I’ve purchased, and another bookcase with a shelf dedicated to Sproul. One large section next to the Sproul shelf is my Puritans section.

So it’s enjoyable to place a recently obtained book where it should go, and to then sit in the library and be among all my books and look at them, which by now are like friends.

It has taken me 35 years to accumulate them. I was always a reader and enjoyed library book sales and yard sales and finding books even before I was saved. When I moved from Maine to Georgia, though, I halved my personal library, after calculating the weight and the cost of hiring the mover to haul them 1500 miles.

When I moved within Georgia from one apartment to another, I halved them again, for the same reason, and because I was moving from a 800 sf apartment to a 400 square foot apartment. By then I was saved and I had started looking for theological books, anyway. I didn’t mind abandoning the books I left behind because many were not acceptable reading for a Christian. Dream interpretation/New Age books, spiritual but not doctrinal books, romances, and the like…all went bye bye.

This was a blessing because not only were my shelves cleaned and purified but now I had room to accumulate books about missionaries, commentaries, doctrinal books and so on. And for the last 21 years I have been doing just that.

With this last batch I’ve accumulated, inventoried, and placed lovingly on my shelves, I realized now my shelves are full! I realized I literally have no more room to put one more book. This is both a sadness and a joy.

I never really collected anything other than books. I like function, and books are functional. Early in my life, like when I was 10, 11 years old I began collecting glass figurines. In the Mall (when there were malls) there used to be glassblowers selling their wares at kiosks. I had bought a delicately glass-blown small tall ship, a ballerina, and several other figures. My brother in a fit smashed them all one day. I thought “Well, that’s that.” I decided not to collect ‘things’ as they might one day be destroyed and render the whole collecting endeavor pointless.

As an adult I don’t like collecting ‘things’ because you have to dust them, and they take up space. I prefer empty or nearly empty flat surfaces. But books are living, so to speak. They’re friends you can turn to for entertainment, for comfort, to learn from. I came from a family of readers, so it seemed like a natural fit to collect them.

I remember once in the mid 1990s when my husband and I were traveling from Maine across the southern tier of the US for a few months. We made it to Los Angeles. My cousin lived there, which seemed exotic to us New Englanders to have a family member living so far away. We got together and visited, and he took us to a taping of the Tonight show. At that time Jay Leno was the host, and old time comedian Jonathan Winters was the main guest.

We were standing in line to get the free tickets, and since this was pre-cell phone days, we each took out a book to read as we were waited, me from my purse, my husband and cousin from their back pockets. Reading was what we did at any spare moment. We always carried a book or had one nearby.

I know some people don’t mind books in piles, books laid down on top of standing books on the shelves, books everywhere. I am too structured for that and I’d decided not to have any book piles when my shelves became full. So if my shelves are full, that means no more books. I’ve winnowed down twice, and the books I have are the books I want, so I won’t be dispensing with any unless something changes in me, my apartment, or my circumstances.

I love my books and now I get to love the ones I have and there will be no more additions for the time being. There will be no more collecting. I am happy to be a reader, to live a live of books, and to own so many wonderful possibilities for picking one up and mentally journeying whenever I want.

Whatever hobby you have, whatever leisure you choose, I pray it brings you enjoyment and comfort.