I’ve always wanted to be an old book lady. I had the dream of having 5,000 books in my house when I die. When I moved out on my own floor to ceiling height was the most important thing to me about a living space because of bookcase. I watch home improvement shows and I weep when the interior designers rip out built-in bookcases. I recently learned from my mother that the one of the larger Barnes & Nobles in my state will be closing. She was talking about this with the ladies at an art day retreat group she was at and they were wondering “don’t people read anymore”. When my mom was telling me this she was nodding her head in agreement and saying “most people are glued to their tablets now”. But that’s only part of the answer when you think about it.

“Physical books are a luxury,” I said. When you have a generation of people who got out college and hand to either move back home or a roommate situation with 2,3,4, or 5 people if they got in a house share; space is a premium. If you love to read, eBooks are you friend because a smart buy of a e-reader/tablet with good storage and you can have hundreds of books in a tiny space and buying them doesn’t require you going into a physical store to purchase them. If your housing situation isn’t the most stable you don’t have to worry about packing your library if it’s mostly electronic.

It was having this conversation I realized how much of a luxury my book dream is. Granted is has changed shape over the years to focus on quality and not quantity in my physical library. But I’ve tried to turn my dream in to a way to give back to my community by donating books to the library so others might enjoy them also.