Don’t Forget Your Reading List

Image source: Merlina McGovern

A few weekends ago, my husband and I visited our local public library. We hadn’t been in years. No excuses other than being lazy and getting all of our media digitally. But, I wanted to feel a part of my community. I wanted to look at something other than the deathly white glow of my phone screen. So off we went.

I’d forgotten how wondrous and beautiful a local library can be. The main reading room was full of warm dark wood with glorious carvings crawling up and down the molding. Gilt-framed paintings hung imperiously on the walls, and comfortable wing-backed chairs beckoned to any and all readers.

As I headed to the stacks, the rows and rows of books overwhelmed me. New fiction, nonfiction, paperbacks, large-print books, graphic novels, staff picks—the categories went on and on. I realized that I had zero idea what I was looking for, and I thought that I would just browse aimlessly until the right book jumped out at me.

I ran my finger along hardback, plastic-covered spines, tilting my head to read the titles. Every now and then I pulled one out, looked at the cover, and read the blurbs. I finally picked one. But, as I wrote about previously, this book ultimately bored me to tears, and I ended up returning it unfinished.

The next time I visited the library, I found myself aimlessly wandering the stacks again. Oh no, I thought. I didn’t want to waste my time picking up another dud. 

Fortunately, I remembered a little list I had started in my Notes app of books that friends had recommended to me. This time around, I saw Mennonite in a Little Black Dress sitting at the top of my list, and I ran to a computer terminal to see if the library had a copy. It did! I checked it out, along with an Agatha Christie novel.

I brought the well-read paperback, its edges curled from readers before me having doggy-eared the pages, with me to bed and started reading.

And it was hilarious! It was a memoir about a woman going through the worst mid-life debacle (her husband left her, and, after a terrible car crash, she finds herself heading back to her Mennonite family for care and comfort). The author vulnerably opened up a hilarious window into the life of a woman who had left her conservative religion to travel the halls of academia only to be brought back to her family after a series of pitfalls.

The writing was witty and observant (if a bit dated in terms of social morays), and it actually had me laughing out loud several times.

I’m more than half way through after a little more than a week. It just goes to show how having a plan when going to the library will help keep you from being overwhelmed with everything the library has to offer. 

And it’s a reminder to go to your public library. It’s a wonderful part of your community—take advantage of it!