Book Blogger Hop: Are books a must-have in your home?

  The Book Blogger Hop is a weekly feature hosted by Ramblings of a Coffee Addicted Writer.  A bookish prompt is given, for the dual purpose of giving the blogger a topic to discuss, and a way to find other book blogs to read and follow.

Today, the Book Blogger Hop question is: "Are books a must-have in your home?"  Well, yes.

Erasmus by Dürer 

I grew up having my own bookcase, and by early teen years it was overflowing.  When we moved to a new house when I was in high school, I was given larger shelves, and I filled them full that very first year with a trip to the library used book sale. That's the point when I fell in love with antique books, vintage paperbacks and any book, in fact, old or odd. My husband is a reader as well, and our first conversation about finances was me telling him that I didn't care how much we spent on books  -- we'll work around any thing else after books.  After all, as Erasmus said:

When I have a little money, I buy books; and if I have any left, I buy food and clothes.

That's how our marriage started more than twenty years ago, when we combined our two libraries.  Now. . .  Well, here are two of our shelves.  The one on the left side of the hall is nonfiction; the right side is fiction.  As you can see, we are totally out of space there, and our other rooms have full smaller shelves as well.

So, yes, books are a must-have.  In fact, despite our current wealth of books, we went to the county library's annual used book sale yesterday, and came home with a nearly complete matched set of 1909-1910 Harvard Classics, missing just two of the fifty volumes.  I had to empty two shelves in the living room to accommodate them, but it was worth it!

  

Book Blogger Hop: 3/10/23

Today's Book Blogger Hop topic is: do you listen to audiobooks with earbuds or headphones?

Short Answer: No.  And yes!

Long Answer:  I spend most of my days at home alone, and I listen to one or two audiobooks a week as a result.  I just plug my iPod or phone into a portable speaker for use when doing housework and for when I shower, with no need for earbuds then.  In the evenings, I listen to audiobooks in the living room while I cross stitch.  If my husband is reading or watching something, then I use my earbuds; otherwise, it doesn't bother him, and he even listens some, as well.  In the car, no earbuds, of course, as that is super dangerous, but I never go into a store alone without them in and an audiobook playing.  At bedtime, I generally listen to the Psalms as I go to sleep, and I use earbuds then, too.  I listen to audiobooks more without than with, but definitely need a working set at all times.

What about you?  Do you listen to audiobooks?  If so, what is your typical way?

The Book Blogger Hop is a weekly feature hosted by Ramblings of a Coffee Addicted Writer.  A bookish prompt is given, for the dual purpose of giving the blogger a topic to discuss, and a way to find other book blogs to read and follow.

Book Blogger Hop: 3/3/23

The Book Blogger Hop is a weekly feature hosted by Ramblings of a Coffee Addicted Writer.  A bookish prompt is given, for the dual purpose of giving the blogger a topic to discuss, and a way to find other book blogs to read and follow.

This week's prompt asks "Have you joined Libby"?  Short answer: Heck, yeah!

Long answer:  Libby is a app used by library systems for the free loaning of e-books and digital audiobooks.  Overdrive is the classic version, where audiobooks are actually downloaded to the PC, then uploaded on an mp3 device.  With Libby, the audiobooks are either streamed through the app or downloaded to the app (mobile or PC) for listening (point being, they can only be played through the app).  My library system still offers both, and I prefer to download them through Overdrive to manually put on my iPod or phone, so I technically am not using Libby, but the point remains the same -- without the library, I couldn't support my audiobook habit!  I listened to 65 last year, with the majority being library loans.

The library has been my friend as long as I can remember.  When I was a young teen, I volunteered during the summer, shelving books.  The librarians gave recommendations to this voracious, precocious reader, so that I was introduced to Agatha Christie ahead of most, developed an early (and lifelong) passion for Regency England through Georgette Heyer, and was encouraged to read classics long before high school.  I owe a lot to Jill and Mary.