(I'm a top Google hit for information on the children's author Ruth Chew. Click here for my page about Ruth Chew.)
So, what about the books that *didn't* get left behind? What did I take with me? That's what my web page is all about. The books I collect, read, and love. And even some I don't like. Use the menu to visit my book categories. I've got a catalog, wishlist, and bibliography for each category. The biggest category right now is Juvenile Sci-Fi Fantasy. I concentrated on compiling those books for the 2003 University of Chicago Undergraduage Book Collecting contest, but I didn't win. The other categories have been developed subsequently. That would explain why they're a little skeletal. My book stuff pages are full of more general experience and advice. And more lists. This website is mostly all just lists of stuff. I'm good at lists. My website pages are really just a link to email me, a page that says random stuff about what I want to incorporate into my website next, and a page about me. (I do other things besides read. Sometimes.) If you click on the dragon, you will encounter a website which sells beautiful Windstone Editions like mine. Mine's a Lap Dragon, but there are many to choose from. They look almost real. If you want, you can read the essay that I wrote for the U of C book contest. For a while I tried to keep it up to date, but that got to be tricky. ***** "What shall I do with my books?"'What shall I do with my books,' was the question; and the answer 'Read them' sobered the questioner. But if you cannot read them, at any rate handle them and, as it were, fondle them. Peer into them. Let them fall open where they will. Read on from the very first sentence that arrests the eye. Then turn to another. Make a voyage of discovery, taking soundings of uncharted seas.... Arrange them on your own plan, so that if you do not know what is in them, you at least know where they are. If they cannot be your friends, let them at any rate be your acquaintances. If they cannot enter the circle of your life, do not deny them at least a nod of recognition. --Winston Churchill. ***** The power of books:There is hardly any grief that an hour's reading will not dissipate. -- Montesquieu ***** The sanctity of books:Call it impiety, but to me the very word library has a sanctity that church cannot gain. The sacredness is my own association, of course. It is thick walls and tall windows. It is quiet rustling pages that whisper of knowledge. It is cool and smelly with that exciting odor that can only be got from aging glue, printers ink, paper, leather, and ideas together. -- A. C. Greene
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what happens when you accumulate books at your parents' house for 22 years,
and then realize that you have to move and can't take all your books and
bookshelves with you. I would have been willing to settle for *most* of
the books and *all* of the bookshelves, but it turns out they wouldn't let me
leave a bunch of books just lying around on the floor. So, I took most of
the books and all but one of the bookshelves. This is the shelf that got
left behind. (Maybe it doesn't look like that many books, but look at the
picture of the same shelf, emptier, and just think about the total volume of
volumes.)