Five Books to Rule Them All
Going through ten boxes of once-vital books, I found exactly five worth shelving. On sentimentality turning into clutter, the suspiciously fifth-grade prose of 3 Body Problem, a deliberate $10 tip my bank flagged as a possible 53% error, and the strange waves of hunger during my 18-hour fasts.
In my continuing effort to get rid of things, I started going through my book boxes. I don't have any worthless books. At one time or another, each book was incredibly important; vital, even. From that once, long ago, vital need, there now exists some sentimentality for what was. If you're not careful, that turns into a mountain of stuff that you don't actually need. So anyway, I went through ten or maybe twelve boxes of books and I found five – FIVE – books about which I thought, "this should be on my bookshelf."
For a while I've been contemplating where to put some bookshelves. We don't have much space, but this house would feel more like home if I unpacked some more stuff. But how much shelf space do I need? Before spending any money (a shocking strategy!), I decided I should unpack exactly what I wanted to shelve. It turns out I'm just going to stack the books on my equipment rack in my office.
For the record, these five books are:
- Thank You for My Service by Mat Best
- The Apostles' Creed by R. Albert Mohler Jr.
- The Exemplary Husband by Stuart Scott
- Around the World in (More Than) 80 Days by Larry Alex Taunton
- A spiral bound genealogy book of my family that my father made
