Anish's Library

I inherited my love of books from my mother, who comes from a long line of teachers, professors, educators, etc. While my father is also a voracious reader (if he has any free time on his hands you will find him reading something) he preferred reading newspapers, magazines, and periodicals; not books so much. Every vacation trip we ever took as a family, we spent at least one week in all shopping around for books. So, the love of books runs pretty deep in my family.

I don't know exactly when I started putting together a collection of books as my own, but by the end of high-school, I had quite a considerable number of books in my personal library: various encyclopedias (I loved general knowledge), text-books (not ones I was required to have; others I had found that explain my pet subjects better; yes, guilty of being a nerd =)), novels (mostly along the lines of Jeffrey Archer, John Grisham, and Robin Cook). However, the most prized books in my collection were three large books of fairy-tales. Three hardbound volumes that were a couple of inches thick, replete with illustrations, containing all the best tales, handed down to me by my mother, who got it from her uncle, who got it from.... I don't know, but it's been in my family a long time, hence the special attachment.

I moved after high-school; and couldn't take any of my books with me. The first year or so in my new home, I found myself missing my personal library a lot. I still do miss some of those books from time to time; the fairy tale books for example when yours truly made a reference to Rumpelstiltskin recently, and I couldn't remember all the details of the story. My new home and new family had many books around the house; I tried to gather a few of them into my room and claim them as my own, but... they didn't feel the same... They weren't MY books...

I waited patiently, saving up money here and there, and slowly started building up a new collection of books. I don't have quite as many books as I had before growing up; far less actually, but when writing this post I was surprised to see the kinds of books I now had in my collection. Growing up, I was curious about the world, about gaining knowledge, and fantasy and my library reflected that. Now, the thing I struggle most with is my christian pilgrimage, my faith, my relationships, and larger questions of life in general, and my new library, I was a little surprised to realize, reflected that too.

So, if you've never done this before, take a step back and look at the kinds of books you have in your collection. What does your personal library say about your life story and/or life focus?

Till we meet again on this journey,
Anish

This Post was Written By: Anish Abraham a PHD student at UT Southwestern, in his free time he does just about everything including but not limited to: playing every instrument, designing websites (ie wordless thought's proud designer), coreographer, and good listener.