Memoirs of a book collector - Part 2

In high school, Literature was far from my best subject. I didn’t pay much attention to what the teachers were trying to pound into my head, and I found myself as a thirty-something who really didn’t know much about Wharton, Hemingway or Steinbeck. I was okay with this until the birth of my first son. I wanted things to be different with him. I wanted to instill in him a passion for books and reading that I never had. I wanted him to grow up in the presence of great works of literature. Whether he read them or not was a different challenge. At that point I merely wanted to create the opportunity.

I read that just having books in the home was a very positive educational influence. (I’m sure it would even be better if the parents actually read the books.) So I got this idea stuck in my mind that I would create a library where I would keep classic books.

Also around this time I started a new job that was two blocks away from a very big and very inexpensive used bookshop. I am a software developer, so the bookshop became my sanctuary. It was a place I could go to after work or during lunch to remove me from technology and give me perspective on what life was all about. Each book represented a unique view point. Some were written 50 years ago, and some were written last month. But each story reminded that there was (and continues to be) a world that exists unplugged from the Internet. That provided comfort for me when I found myself too wired.

It was these two ingredients (desire to inspire my son and the therapeutic effect of discovering old books) that motivated me to build my library. My wife said we didn’t have the room, but I wasn’t going to let a small detail like that get in the way. So I purchased a few books shelves over time and slowly took over my family’s living room. I decided that I would populate my library with classics. So I started researching, and stumbled across a list of all the winners of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction winners. I was surprised to learn that the list dates back to 1918. I recognized some of the books - To Kill a Mockingbird, The Grapes of Wrath, The Old Man and the Sea, and Gone with the Wind. Some I never heard of – Scarlet Sister Mary for example. I was intrigued. I decided then to collect all of these books – there are close to 80 of them! For a complete list check out Pulitzer List and Pulitzer Prize Thumbnails Project

More tomorrow...