Soul on a shelf (and in a box)

Cicero

A room without books is like a body without a soul.

Cicero

My bathroom is soulless, apparently. Otherwise I'm with Cicero. I live in a two-bedroom condo with books everywhere else, including the kitchen,

I recently purchased two large IKEA bookcases to add even more soul to the condo and allow me to take several boxes of books out of storage. Even so, my storage unit still has more soul than my condo does.

I have written previously about the joy of removing books from boxes, and I experienced that joy again a few days ago. It doesn't seem to matter whether these are new mail-order books or your own books stored temporarily in a box. The thrill is the same, like Christmas morning for bibliophiles.

The labels on my boxes didn't tell me much. "Unread nonfiction. ""Biographies." "Unread fiction, A-F." The "A-F" refers to the last names of the authors. Mostly I tried to rescue unread books, naturally enough. The books that ended up in my new bookcases are not always the ones I would have chosen had I been able to open every box and sort through the books before deciding which to take to the condo. Chance was involved, and that seemed to add to the fun.

As I read these books, I will exchange them for others in storage. We wouldn't want soul to get stagnant.