Keeping My Collection

(one of my bookcases shown below)

I have a total of 682 books at this moment. I love my library but I don’t love every book in it and, to me, that’s okay. But everyone collects and treats their books in different ways. Some people only have audiobooks, only ebooks, or only physical books. Some practically live in libraries, while other book readers can’t stand the institutions. To dog-ear a page or to bookmark it? To arrange by author, by color, or by genre? There are many kinds of readers, and many ways a library can tell you about the collection's owner.

My library is large and ever-growing, full of books that I love, books that I hated, and books I may never open. I will listen to audiobooks but I will buy the physical copy of the book too. I stopped dog-earring my pages when I got to college but I can never keep a bookmark around for very long. Most of the time receipts and index cards serve as temporary place-holders.

The order of my books is always changing. Every few months I will rearrange them, place them in a circle of piles around me. I get to revisit them, wipe the dust off some of the jackets, and get excited about what is left to read. I keep series and authors together and believe that is why I will never be able to organize my books by color. There is a single pile of yellow-covered books in the midst of chaos in an attempt though. And my books are currently arranged by genre and then by author’s last name.

Too often do I confuse people when I tell them I don’t go to libraries. I love the buildings, the people, the books and spaces and ideas. I don’t love returning the books I’ve read. I can’t let go of the stories. Friends will empty entire bookcases on a whim, but I cannot rid myself of poorly written atrocities once they have settled into a shelf. Let me paw my way through the cardboard boxes of books you want to donate - let me be a home.

My collection of books is my only prized material possessions. I pride myself on being low-maintenance, for not being encumbered by the things I gather in life. My books, however, are my legacy. I have no children, and there’s a possibility that there aren’t any in my future. But my library is the collection of my life-the books I’ve collected in high school nestled alongside the ones I hunched over in college. My husband bought me a book stamp when we were dating - “From The Collection of Lisa DeAnn Ablondi.” The first birthday gift he gave me after we married was the same book stamp with my married name on it. “So that now your future fans will know which books you bought before we got married and which you bought afterward.” Of course, I don’t collect my books for any “future fans” of my writing. I collect because I have no choice-my books are my life and passion. And they will tell you more about me than I can.