The Legacy of Books

 I recently had some of my father’s books passed down to me. Not his entire library (he was an avid reader) but a sampling of things it was thought I would enjoy, because I inherited many of my interests from him.

Any of these can be clicked to enlarge, in case you’re curious about the titles.

I’m guessing most people have a variety of interests. Some of these change over time and some stay with us for our lifetime. We can pursue them through a variety of means: magazines, clubs, internet content, borrowed books, etc. And then there are the books we collect, the books that make up our personal libraries. 

I can’t tell you how much I appreciate that these are print books. I’ve always been a fan of real books. But when Kindle first came out, I got one. It pushed the popularity of electronic books, so much so that technophiles were saying that digital was the future of books and  print books would soon be obsolete.

I found my Kindle useful for fiction, and I liked the mobility. I could read a book while standing in a long line at the grocery store. But for nonfiction and research, I thought it left much to be desired. It boasted search and note-taking features, but I found these time consuming to use and inconvenient to find things again. I especially missed being able to flip back and forth between passages on several pages. And of course, the device was constantly nagging to be fed, and it was fussy about format. The Kindle will only read mobi formatted books. Other eReaders want different formats. Eventually my Kindle became outdated and obsolete. At that point, all the books I had stored on it were lost to me. That’s pretty much when I abandoned digital books.  

My dad’s books are part of his legacy to me. They aren’t just the outline of his life, i.e. name, dates, places, and major events, rather they document the person he was. A peek into his soul, so to speak. They are a sampling of the things he was interested in, the things he cared about. He listed page numbers in the fly-leafs, underlined passages that spoke to him, and made a few notes in the margins. 

All of these are precious to me. They give me a sense of belonging. Rootedness. Groundedness. A sense of my personal heritage. They represent my father’s legacy to me. 

What legacy of books will I leave to my children? Gardening, homesteading, permaculture, historical fiction, science fiction, biblical hermeneutics, natural animal care, herbs, historical bibliographies, classical literature, historical farming, traditional skills, DIY, cookbooks, nature identification, food preservation, history, fiber and textile arts.