Home Is Where the Books Are

MY GRANDPARENTS LIVED in a three-story Victorian on High Street in Danbury. Here I spent my first weeks of life and many overnights throughout childhood, including a couple of long, dreamy summers—which might explain my deep attachment. In dreams, I still walk the halls of that house.

Although there were four spacious bedrooms upstairs, my grandparents slept downstairs, in a small, dark corner room. Easier to keep warm in winter, I expect, and cool in summer with two narrow windows overlooking the back garden. But it’s the closet I remember best—a walk-in closet full of books, shelved on three sides, floor to ceiling. A little library. All for me, if I chose. And I did.

At 10-11-12 years old, I read westerns (Zane Gray), romances (Grace Livingston Hill), adventures (Edison Marshall), biographies (of Helen Keller, Van Gogh, Lincoln) and humor (Joseph Lincoln)—all in hardcover with soft dog-eared pages.

Others had loved these books before me.

In that closet, I discovered Agatha Christie. One night, instead of sleeping, I read “Partners in Crime”—the whole book in one gulp. When I finished, in the wee hours of morning, I wanted to read it again.

My mother worked for several years at Rumford Press in Concord. She brought home seconds—stacks of chapter books for children (and Little Golden Books, too, I think)—that she got for free. Eureka! At yard sales, the going rate was 5 cents for a paperback, hardcovers a dime. At auctions, books were even cheaper, $1 a box. What a thrill it was when Ma won a bid and I got to dig through in search of favorite authors.

For Christmas and birthdays, I’d receive the gift of one brand-new book. In this way, slowly, a set of animal adventures by Rutherford Montgomery was completed, including “El Blanco: Legend of the White Stallion” and “Odyssey of an Otter,” which shaped how I thought about our responsibility for the Earth and its creatures.

My father built a bookshelf for my collection above the window in my bedroom. I covered the books with brown paper from grocery bags, alphabetized them and gave each a comment card: “Good book!” or “One of the best stories I ever read!” or “Funny and sad!” I had to stand on the bed to reach my library. No problem. I read them over and over.

Re-reading remains, for me, an even greater pleasure than discovering a book to love in the first place. An acquaintance, allergic to paper dust, replaces his bestloved novels with fresh editions every few years. Luckily, I’m not allergic. A quick count of books in our house surprised me. Two thousand, maybe. Some in the bedroom, some in the guest room, shelves of paperbacks along the stairwell, many in my study, twice as many in my husband’s study. I cull; my husband cannot.

We store special volumes in a Larkin secretary in the living room: books published before the Civil War, first editions, falling-apart novels from the 1930s and ’40s, precious because Grammie LaPierre sketched in them or Grampa Stewart wrote his name inside the cover.

Someday, common sense says, my husband and I will have to leave this house for smaller quarters. Then will come the hard choices. What to keep. What to pass along. What to leave behind. Maybe in this new place, we’ll share just one shelf for childhood favorites, books that came into our lives at the right time to inspire, treasured gifts, books that reflect the life we’ve lived.

Someday, common sense says, it won’t be my husband and me, but my husband or me. One of us will be alone. When that time comes, our books will be both touchstone and comfort.

Home is where the books are. NHH

By Rebecca Rule | Illustration by Carolyn Vibbert