Book Problems.

If there is such thing as having a "book problem" I am sure I am in trouble.

How do you gauge a legitimate book problem anyway? Because, I have at least 10, maybe 20 books that I have purchased yet not been able to get to reading yet. I am also unwilling to look through my Amazon orders and see how many books were purchased this year. That number might be a little too large to deal with.

When we got bookshelves in our homeschool room this summer I was so relieved. I had stacks of various kinds of books lined up against one of the walls. I thought for sure that my new shelves would store everything, help me clear out some other shelves and areas upstairs, and leave me with space for more books (just what I needed). But yeah, all those shelves are currently full, well, overflowing might be a better description.

So what do you do? I told my husband that my problem was simply too few bookshelves.

We had an empty space that is perfectly sized for a bookshelf, so when my husband got a new shelf for his office (which he really did need), I convinced him to buy a matching one for that space upstairs. And it looks SO nice! But, I learned a good lesson about bookshelves.

It helps when they have sides!

These shelves are all cool, very minimalistic, and just have these iron-looking frames, so if I want to stack my books upright and proper, I'll need to go and buy some legitimate book-ends.

Non-fiction is definitely my genre of choice. I love reading about learning skills, or philosophy, or about the lives of real-life people. I've been gathering more Christian Biographies too, as they are just so faith-building and encouraging, in all the most valuable ways. I've been slowly gathering books on art, both instructional and for looking/discussing qualities, and that pace has gone up a few notches over the last few months.

My husband has no mind's eye (like actually zero ability to see anything in his head) so he reads zero fiction. It's too hard for him to try and keep the story in his mind without seeing anything in his imagination. He's great at reading fiction out loud to the kids though. His voices are always SO much better than mine... plus he doesn't cry at sad parts like I do. Seriously, The Penderwicks in Spring has got me bawling in every stinking chapter. My kids are pretty over it and sometimes offer to read the parts that I cannot read without crying.

Books about writing, and now about reading too, are all over the place here in my home. Have they made me a better writer? Eh, it's debatable. I think I've actually become a better writer more from reading incredible writers, since one of my best talents is paying attention. I'm excited to read Reading Like a Writer and see what else I can glean.

I hope if you don't have a book problem right now, you'll make some headway on that. It is a beautiful (though sometimes depressing) thing to be surrounded by an abundance of books. I am never as alone as I feel, and my books are a gateway to feeling at one with history and remembering the presence of my God who created it all.