crazy book lady...

...or bibliophile. That sounds less compulsive, doesn't it?

I needed to get the books out of my daughter's room, to see if that would effect or improve her allergy situation. Another in a long list of lifestyle adjustments for us both, which has included the exile of my beloved cat of fifteen years to the Virginia suburbs (sigh). But that's another story...

...so back to the books, and boy, there are a lot of them! I was able to get her books into a medium size bookcase and two small storage units for easy access. I also decided to move the three piles of "to-reads" from my bedroom out to the foyer as well, which is now our ersatz library. While I was doing all of this moving around I decided to take a little inventory and see if I could shed some - for donation or trade at my favorite used bookstore. Not a lot of luck. There were a few titles that my daughter was willing to pass on to a baby friend of ours, but not much more. And looking at my books, well, they are divided into quite a few categories, none of which I'm wiling to pare down yet either, if ever:

• My dad's books - not a lot, but some poetry (Wallace Stevens), astronomy and history titles that make me think of him
• Vintage children's books - from my mom's and my childhood, some are pretty fragile, some are pretty amazing (Many Moons, D'Aulaire's Book of Greek Myths)
• Travel and foreign language books - remind me of trips to Italy, Egypt, Greece and France. The travel guides are totally out of date, but...
• Mystery - mostly Agatha Christie from my mom and Lawrence Block from my dad
• Art, Art, Art - catalogs from exhibitions or featuring favorite artists and museums (Botticelli, Musée de Cluny, Bayeux Tapestry, Titian)
• Historical fiction - right now it's medieval England and France that's floating my boat (The Sunne in Splendour, Time and Chance, Mademoiselle Boleyn)
• Cookbooks - mainly Mediterranean Cuisine (The Frugal Gourmet Cooks Three Ancient Cuisines, Mario's Holiday Cookbook)

As I was looking at all the books, I started thinking about connections and how one thing leads you to another. Of course my art education has provided a background for my interest in Ancient and European art, culture and history, whether I have pursued this interest through fiction (Christian Jacq's Ramses and Stone of Light series) or non-fiction (Antonia Fraser's Wives of Henry VIII, Death in Ancient Egypt, Love and Hate in Jamestown). But anyway, I find that a movie or a television program like The Tudors led me to read more about the period. Reading about the Tudors made me want to know about the Wars of the Roses, which led me back to the Plantagenets and how it all started. As I read about the English I became more interested in France, as the two separate countries we know today were in those days completely intertwined. This brought back my trip to the Loire Valley, which was part of a tour of northern France. At the time I was not so interested in chateau after chateau, but now I realize that I was walking in the footsteps of Francois Premier, Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitatine as I strolled through Chinon and Angers, where I saw the amazing Apocalypse Tapestry. Of course now I want to go back to France and England, armed with my better understanding and reference points. The question is, once there, what will spark my fancy and lead me off on another thread, supplemented of course by books, books, books?

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