When my husband took a tour of the old farmhouse last year, he was sure he would be able to convince me to buy it when he saw the library. Floor to ceiling bookshelves covered three walls of the room. Many of the shelves still held books as the former owner was also a book collector.

My husband was right: the library made the rest of the farm an easy sell, and the first things that got moved were my books. In our tiny little house, they had been double shelved, stored in boxes and hidden in the linen closet. Now, they are breathing freely, mostly organized, and I spend happy hours browsing the shelves, pulling out a book here and there, dreaming of the many hours of happy reading they will provide.

This is about more than just being a reader. After all, I can read books from the library, on my iPad, or borrowed from others. I love owning books and have collected them throughout my life. Poetry anthologies and literary collections from my days as an English major, textbooks about educational planning and policy from my doctoral work, and plenty of volumes of history and historical fiction along with nature writing, areas of personal interest that have grown over time. Now that we have moved to the farm, the shelves devoted to books about country living and farm stories are starting to fill up.

So, my dream of having a real library has come true. I’m waiting for some snow days to begin seriously cataloging the collection. My next dream is to open a bookstore, which in this day and age will probably be online. My husband says I won’t be able to part with my books but I don’t think that’s true. Instead, selling some of the less-loved volumes will pave the way for buying more. For now, however, I’m just going to enjoy my days in the library.

Note: This entry is an answer to the writing assignment “Tell Me a Story” as part of ds106.