I moved my books

Dear Friends - The last couple of weeks have been busy. First, I was off on medical leave. (No worries, no big deal, just an agreement - OK, punctuated with threats - with my doctor to get some uninterrupted down time.) At the same time, I was moving my office to a new building. (Of that, perhaps a post on another day.) Well, I wasn't really doing it, my partner was. The move required that we gather up alllll my books, both those shelved and those still in boxes from the last move and move them again. This weekend, I have spent a lot of time going through the books, ruthlessly sorting them into those I want to keep (still a bunch), and those I will never read again. The latter are going to the public library. (Yes, I know to get a receipt for tax purposes.) As of today, I have about 1,000 volumes to go to the library, and the rest are shelved. As I did this, I visited a lot of old friends. I would not say that I "collect" books, because I think that sounds snooty and I'm not that organized anyway. But let's say I gather together books, and value them. My tastes are mixed, and rather plebeian with rare exceptions. I like westerns. Yeah, yeah, maybe they aren't literature, but nothing beats a winter evening with Zane Grey or Louis L'Amour. Many of those have gone on the shelves behind my desk. (Often, clients will make various comments on the books I keep there, sometimes with surprise that I like the same things that they do.) I also love regional works. There are old and reproduction local histories and novels, also in my room. One of my favorites is Daughter of the Elm, by Granville Davisson Hall, which features "the Big Elm," which was one huge mother of a tree that the original settlers found in the 1700's. An elementary school, appropriately called "Big Elm Elementary" is on the site today. Another favorite is Vein of Riches, by John Knowles. In that, there is a fictional town based closely on my town (the author's hometown), and there are images of locations well known to me, from the Victorian main lobby of a bank in which I used to have an office to a bridge a block from my new office. Let's see - for flavor, I have first editions of everything that Sinclair Lewis wrote. (Finding The Godseeker was a multi-year task in the pre-internet, pre-Bookfinder.com days.) I treasure copies of everything written by Theodore Roosevelt and everything that I can find so far written about him. I have lots and lots of books on Lincoln, but I hear that there are about 16,000 books about him, so I have a long, long way to go. I'm searching out bios of LBJ, many of which have been published in just the past few years. I slowly acquire signed copies of works of authors I love - David Poyer (who wrote the Hemlock County novels), Ken Follett, Clive Cussler (see? see? I told you I have plebeian tastes!) I'm still trying to find a copy of Principia Mathematica and run down Isaac Newton to sign it - Anyone seen him lately? Oh, and a fellow sold me an autographed Bible. Did you know that God writes in cursive? I have lots and lots of books from and about Scouting, which remains one of my life's passions. (Brother Pete, I've held my nose and stayed with them, and I'll be damned if I let the ungodly run me out of town.) I have many books on Freemasonry, another of my life's little passions. My nod to uncustomary class is a bang-up set of the 1953 University of Chicago classical writings, which I stumbled on by accident. I am slowly putting together little hardback sets of favorite works, including all that James Michener published, the American historical novels of Allan Eckert, even classic science fiction. And then, downstairs, spread between the client interview room and the conference room are shelves and shelves of everything else, history, political science (I consider anything written by James Carville to be divinely inspired), thrillers, modern fiction, historical fiction, science fiction, science, and the odd unclassifiable work. Well, this is a look into my literary life, and is the most revealing thing that I can probably write about me. I hope it hasn't been boring. By the way, and this is off the subject, but does anyone know how to put a paragraph break into a post so it's not one damn long paragraph like this? Unskillfully, Roger.