Filling Our Home with Books!
Over the weekend, E and I went on a book buying spree.
We mostly read library books that we borrow from the Boston Public Library system in the form of ebooks or audiobooks. But we've been talking for a couple of months now (ever since I reorganized our bookshelves) about buying more physical books - mostly things we've already read and would like to own a copy to reference or re-read, but not exclusively.
When we were in Brussels recently, we stayed with our friends Brittney and Mohamed and their two-year-old, Hannah, and E loved how many books they had in their home. There were tons of kids books, but also lots of books for adults - fiction and non-fiction and in a variety of languages, mostly English, but also Arabic, German, French, and Dutch. (They're a very cool multilingual family!)
E really likes the idea of raising the little lizard in a house filled with books and, as the daughter of two librarians, I'm certainly not going to stop him. I grew up thinking every family had a room in their house that they called the library, as essential a part of the home as a living room or a kitchen.
That said, E and I also really like to buy secondhand as much as possible. So, E found a couple of websites (ZVAB and AbeBooks) that make it easy to search for and order used books online, and we went on the aforementioned book buying spree.
Two books have already arrived:
In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado, which I started listening to on audio earlier this year and decided I would prefer a physical copy so I can easily go back and reread sentences.
Achtung Baby by Sara Zaske, which is about being an American raising kids in Berlin. I read it a few years ago and have been thinking it would be nice for me and E to own a reference copy.
As I was writing this newsletter, the doorbell rang and two more book mail packages arrived, so I'm going to go open those now! I'm looking forward to the next few weeks of this. :)