Wednesday, November 30, 2011

COOKBOOKS GARDENING BOOKS FARM BOOKS OH MY

Hundreds of Books all in a Row
"Hello, we are 1st Man and 2nd Man, and we have a book problem..."

Yes, we love books.

Cookbooks, gardening books, craft books, how to books, country wisdom books and just about anything we think we could use on the farm...we've been collecting them for years.  We just can't pass up a used book store, or a sale at a regular book store or even something fun on Amazon or eBay..  

Prior to this photo, they were in four bookcases in the guest room in the city. When we were deciding what furniture we could move out to the farm, we realized that we could move the bookcases out there and finally have our books all organized where they need to be.  No TV will mean lots of time for reading books, something we can't wait to do.

So this weekend's project was to get the bookcases emptied.  Got them all emptied out.  We're leaving one here at the city, and taking the other three to put into the living room at the farm.  

Books to the left...
Books to the right...
These aren't even all of our books.  This is a 10 foot long window seat in the dining room at the city house.  As we emptied the bookcases, we removed the cushions on the window seat and started lining the books up in two rows.  When that was full, we lined some up on the dining room table.  After that, we put the last dozen or so on the floor of the guest room.

But it's done, they are cleaned out, we already moved one bookcase into the living room and now we have to choose which books we are going to keep in the city and then the rest of them will head out to the country to go into the three bookcases we are putting out there.  I think we'll have one or two carloads full of just books!  But we'll definintely have plenty of reading to do out there and that's what we are looking forward to.

8 comments:

  1. You are me, only a thousand times worse! I read cookbooks like I read novels. There is usually even a cookbook on the bathroom counter, just for "those" occasions, LOL! I just recently gave most of mine to my oldest daughter, left many in AZ for the new owner, and got my personal collection down to one shelf in a 4' wide bookcase.

    As much as I love reading the cookbooks, I find I only consistently use two....a 1972 issue of Farm Journal's Country Cookbook and a real old (probably 60s-70s) extremely well worn paperback version of Better Homes and Gardens New Cookbook. I used to love Taste of Home magazines, and do keep several older issues. They always had recipes we loved. However, I recently subscribed and I've found America's tastes have changed but ours haven't! Other than desserts and breads, there just aren't any recipes that Mr. Granny and I would enjoy eating. Our tastes seem to be stuck back in the 70s/80s!

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  2. Granny - Yeah, we are bad. We could read a cookbook or gardening book just like an old novel like you. It's funny though how, like you said, we have our same cookbooks we return to over and over. We'll take them all out there to the farm and then we might start selling some to pare down our collection. Welcome back by the way!!

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  3. AH books, wonderful books! Wish more people loved them as much as you guys (and I) do. So much electronic stuff, internet stuff, it's nice to pull a book from a shelf and read through it. Can't wait to see your "library" in it's new farmhome.

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  4. I totally get it! I have a prized collection of how-to books of all kinds. Not as big as yours though, yet. If I was you, I would probably have a real hard time deciding which ones to bring and which to leave behind :) Great thing about the books that you and I love is that they can be read over and over and there is always something new in them. Take care!

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  5. Right there with you. Love cookbooks!!! Love books!!!

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  6. Leslie - That is so true. Many of them I've read through, cover to cover, and I put it on the shelf and a year or two later I'll pull it out to look for something and it's like reading it all over again. Eventually (i.e. retirement) all books will be out there, but for now, we'll move the bulk out there to the farm. As for what stays and what goes, that will be tough. Probably more so for the cookbooks since we can cook at either place. The gardening, well some of them I've bought in preparation for having land and property and they'll naturally go out there (beekeeping, orchard growing, large scale gardens, chickens, etc). At least I say that now anyway, ha.

    Kelly - Yep, for as many high tech things we have, I still love a good book full of information, and I still love leafing through the pages of a magazine.

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  7. I love a book, anything you want to know about is in one! I did more reading in the Library as a kid than any of my friends ...Now i'm still buying and reading them..for each purpose I'm presently involved with :o)

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  8. When I first saw that picture at the top I have to admit the first thing I thought was, how cool, so much better to store books that way than the traditional upright shelves. And then I read that this was just a temporary solution on your window seat. Oh well. Still like the look of it - may need to add it to my list of stuff to do one day when I own my own place - there's already a plan for a comfy window seat so why not.

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