The All-You-Can-Eat Book Buffet

If I recall correctly, Little House in the Big Woods tells us that when Laura Ingalls was a very small girl, her family had only two books: a Bible and a book about animals. Our kids, on the other hand, have the King County Library System.

I didn’t like the Redmond Regional Library when we first moved here. It’s too big, I thought. I missed the teeny, tiny Kenmore library and its friendly atmosphere. I liked that I could see the kids no matter where I was in the building. I especially liked walking in the door and hearing the librarian say, “Good morning, Carol”. Nobody says “hi Carol” at the Redmond library. I don’t usually come face to face with a librarian there – I get the books reserved for us off the shelf on my own and check them out myself on a self-check-out computer. The children’s section of the Redmond library could hold the entire Kenmore library – probably twice. I just didn’t like this huge library...

...until I browsed for the first time without kids. I finally got to venture out of the kids’ section and into the rows and rows of non-fiction. The amount of information in that building is staggering and it’s all available to me at no cost (well, besides taxes which we would pay even if we didn’t use the library). Since I’m not only limited to the thousands of books at the Redmond library but can search online for what I want through all the books of the entire King County Library System, it’s a bit like an all you can eat buffet where you end up with way more on your plate than you possibly can eat. Right now we have more than a hundred library books in our house, which is not unusual. I don’t know what’s wrong with me – I don’t know why I don’t just check out three books, read them all the way through, return them, and get new ones. I just can’t seem to discipline myself. As soon as a thought comes into my head that I might like to know about something or learn how to do something, I go and reserve a dozen books on the topic. Here are some of the books we have checked out now:

Cedar: tree of life to the Northwest Coast Indians
The complete woodcarvers handbook
Several knitting books
Some cookbooks that I don’t seem to be looking at – not on a cooking kick right now.
Origins of great ancient civilizations (A lecture series on dvd)
Sculpting traditional bowls
Talkers, watchers, and doers: unlocking your child’s unique learning style
How to sharpen carving tools
A primer of Biblical Greek
Superfoods for children
Hiking with dogs: becoming a wilderness-wise dog owner
About ten books on heating your home and cooking on a wood stove (we don’t even have a wood stove)
Shepherding a Child’s Heart
Mummies, pyramids, and Pharoahs
Egyptian Boats
Bill and Pete go down the Nile
Beowulf (a children’s version that is still very gruesome and gory but all three kids loved it)
A lime, a mime, a pool of slime: more about nouns
Total Truth: Liberating Christianity from its cultural captivity
Several Harry Potter books
Is your mama a llama?
Rocks and fossils

So many books, so little time. I’m currently looking forward to the arrival of a basic anatomy lecture series I’ve reserved and a book called “How to Play the Pocket Harmonica”. I wonder if we have a harmonica somewhere.