Would You Like to Take a Look at my Bookshelves? Prompted by Mountain Jewel

@mountainjewel made a post about her books and bookshelves and I just LOVED it. She said: If you’d like to share your bookshelves, make a post about it and tag me!

Reading to my younger sister

I have loved reading since I was very tiny. I don’t remember when I learned to read. When I was 8 we moved to a farm on Library Street! The library was ¼ mile away. It was open on Wednesdays and Saturdays and you were allowed to take out 7 books at a time.

It was a very old library and one summer I remember reading all the very old books on horses from the 1800’s on. There’s also one book I remember reading that came in on the bookmobile. It was titled Blueberry Summer, I don’t know the author. I’ve looked and looked for the book, but can’t find it. I’ve found some with the same title, but wrong storyline.

Our old farmhouse did not have many bookcases, just 2 I remember. One was built in under a window, the other a small free standing one in the upstairs hallway. The one under the window had National Geographics from our subscription.

Most of my books have been collected from tag sales and some from library book sales. I have a few, mostly horse books and Beatrix Potters, from when I was a child.

In 2002 my husband started building me bookcases for all my books. This was the first one, to hold all the National Geographics we had collected. My son loved reading them as a child so we would look for old ones at tag sales. Our oldest one is January 1916.

National Geographics

There’s no more room in this second bookcase on the stairwell landing for the National Geographics.

The next one he built was for the hallway on the second floor.

This hall bookcase has non-fiction: plants, health, how to do, herbals, cat, and misc.

The plant and herbal books

The 3rd bookcase he made was a small one for the living room. It held many of the homeschooling books for a long time.

The next one was the big bookcase for the living room. Its bottom 2 shelves held the photo albums and oversize books. There’s Madeleine L’Engle, James Thurber, E.B. White, James Herriott, and lots of humor on the top shelf.

The landing book cases hold many of the mystery collections we have: Sue Grafton, Robert Parker, Dick Francis, Marcia Muller, Agatha Christie, Sara Paretsky, and Rita Mae Brown. These bookcases aren’t built it, just a collection from family and BuyNothing.

There are 3 of these bookcases on the walls in this bedroom. There’s also a floor bookcase made by my middle brother. The 3 wall cases were made by my grandmother.

These have a varied assortment of books: Kurt Vonnegot, the Dune books, Tony Hillerman, and some thriller writers.

The standing bookcase has most of James Michener’s books and a couple shelves of biographies.

The other bedroom has the horse books from my childhood, plus some I’ve collected over the years: Marguerite Henry, C. W. Anderson, Walter Farley, Margaret Cabell Self, and Will Rogers.

My office has all the classics and required reading that schools list. There are more in the closet in this room.

There are several other small freestanding bookcases, some with very old books from the family from the 1800’s.

These are some of the books I’ve found valuable in my journey to know more about food and nutrition, homesteading and farming practices, and animal husbandry.

And this is my favorite book of all…