Exploring My Library

I find that writing is a wonderful way to fill one’s time, and well, I have a lot of time to fill these days. I can’t blame that on the pandemic, as that hasn’t affected us in any significant way, i.e. my wife only allows me go grocery store once a week, and only to the supermarket a minute away, and at 5 in the morning. Being both the household cook, and a former grocery store clerk, I rather like grocery shopping. I miss the deals and imported food of Aldi and the vast selection of everything at Wodemans. Sad, but we all must soldier on, I guess.

Anyway, I find that time really flies when I’m writing. Hours go by unnoticed. However, I am not writing fiction at present. I am, however, running the beginning of what I hope will be my next story through my head -- for a few minutes at a time all through my waking hours. But writing it, if I get an actual story out of it, is still months away. However, since I have the time and I enjoy writing, I’m focusing my typing efforts on this blog. Now, I don’t think I’m very good at this type of writing, but on the theory that practice makes perfect … I’ve decided to launch yet another series of posts, this time featuring the books in my library. Contain your excitement.

My library is pictured above. It used to be spread out along two walls, but having moved last year, I had to condense everything into just one wall, floor to ceiling, with many of my old paperback SF stuffed along the edge and along the top of the actual shelves. A little awkward, but I don’t think I’ll be re-reading most of those old SF books anytime in this life. They’re still with me, not as books to be read, but as loyal, lifelong companions. Some of them have been my faithful companions for the better part of 60 years. They’ll see me dead. Hopefully they won’t end up in a land fill when that time comes.

My plan for this series of occasional posts is to pick an author, show the books of that author that I have in my collection, and talk about them and what they mean, or did mean, to me. The first author I am planning to feature is Andre Norton. The reason I wanted start with her is that I’ve been follow the Norton re-reads on TOR.com and I am amazed at all the books of hers that were published in my white-hot decade of reading SF (1962-1972) that I have never heard of. So why did I stop buying Andre Norton’s books? I still have fond memories of her books, though I know… Well, we’ll save those speculations for the first blog post in this series, coming soon. Stay turned.