I don’t think of myself as someone with a lot of books. When I was a kid, my father’s library took up half of the very biggest moving truck. That’s a lot of books. I only keep reference books (85%) and the rest are fiction or poetry, a paltry six, seven foot bookcases. Unlike everyone else in my family, I give books to friends, I sell books back to Powell’s, and I donate books.

The movers, on the other hand, chided me for trying to put so many boxes in such a small condo. Explaining that they were mostly books and that roughly one box = one shelf didn’t work (possibly because I don’t speak Spanish); they totally sassed me for my stuff.

And now that I’m unpacking all these damn boxes, maybe they they were right. I had the books in my study arranged just so, with history of science on these shelves, naval history on those, Hanoverian English history on another, and so forth. They were perfect.

Until I found two more boxes for the study with Revolutionary/Napoleonic history. I groaned. I’d completely forgotten about them.

M, who believes that the only good book is one that goes on his Kindle, laughed.

Anyway, if anyone needs me, I’ll be unpacking books.