Cultivating a Personal Library
For as long as I can remember, I’ve been an avid reader. Walking to and from elementary school, I would read and my grandmother would tell me that if I didn’t look up from my book, that I’d fall flat on my face. During my younger years, all the books I read either came from the library or the small collection in my classroom. My dream of having a home library started when I saw Beauty and the Beast for the first time and the Beast showed Belle his fabulous library. Floor to ceiling books and a rolling ladder, I could see myself spending hours a day getting lost in all the stories on the shelves.
I continued to read as I got older, but being a minimalist, all my books were digital. The idea of having an entire library in the palm of my hand satisfied my love of owning less material things. Though if I’m being honest with myself, I had an internal battle because I still longed for that gorgeous library of physical books.
It wasn’t until a couple of months ago, that the dam broke, and decades of repressing my desire for a home library took precedence over my love of a minimalist home. Something within me was awakened when the weather got crisper and all I wanted to do was cuddle up under a warm blanket with a cup of tea and a good cozy mystery book. Holding an e-reader in my hand just didn’t feel inviting. I found it difficult to go through my digital library and remember all the books I had read as nothing was organized in a way that made sense to me. Though I didn’t mind reading non-fiction on my tablet, there is something about holding a book in my hands and getting lost in a fictional story.
It was then and there that I decided to build out the home library of my dreams. Why couldn’t I still be a minimalist and be surrounded by the books that I love? I know for some people book collecting can be a business or about owning that priceless first edition, and not so much about reading the books they own. That has not been my approach. My book collection is made up entirely of books that I have read or will read in the near future. I predominantly read cozy mysteries so my collection is 80% cozy mysteries and 20% other fiction.
I tend to be very loyal to certain brands or products. If I like something, I tend to stick to it. In my wardrobe that means that I have one style of pants in multiple colors. In books, that means if I liked the first book of a series, I will read the entire series.
Now truthfully, there is only one cozy mystery series that I’ve been consistently reading for years (The Coffeehouse Mysteries by Cleo Coyle). I’ve read a couple others here and there but it’s only in the last few months that I really started to discover several series that I’ve really liked. This has allowed me to create my home library quite easily. A lot of cozy mystery series are pretty long running and can have 10, 20, 30+ books and so I needed to consider cost. I’ve discovered several online sources for second hand books that have allowed me to build out my library on a budget. eBay, Thrift Books, Second Sale and Book Outlet are my favorites.
Now I have a couple of very small built-in bookshelves in my kitchen which are perfect to house my very small non-fiction collection of mostly cookbooks. Once I started buying my cozy mysteries, I realized I would need more storage. A lot more storage. I looked around online quite a bit and was pretty disappointed with the options. Bookshelves were either too expensive or not quite the right size or look. I decided to go with the classic IKEA Billy bookcase. It is just the right size, came in the color I needed and if I need to purchase more bookshelves in the future, I know that they will always carry them so my shelves will all look the same. I know people don’t like the fact that it’s engineered wood but once I realized that even the $1,000 bookshelves were also made of engineered wood, I opted for my $80 Billy. Thank you very much.
And so, as I sit here writing this, I’m happy to say that I have fulfilled one of my childhood dreams. I have bookshelves full of books that I love. I’ve enjoyed arranging and rearranging them on my shelves. Next step? Creating a little reading nook. To be continued…