B is for Books {Blogging through the Alphabet}

Books! Sometimes I am sure we have too many but really we never have enough. Or maybe it's that we never have enough of the ones we want more than the ones we don't. When I was younger, before getting married and having kids, I read a lot. I was always in a library, most likely at whatever school I was attending. I don't really recall using the public library that often though, oddly enough. My mom always had a lot of books. I remember one house my dad built a bookcase for her for all her books. I thought for sure that I'd also have lots of books when I no longer lived at home. I didn't; not until 2009, when we started homeschooling. 

The house we live in now has four 'bookshelves' built in to one of the rooms. In addition to that we have seven bookshelves elsewhere in the house. I think we could do with at least two more *wink*. We have books {or rather *I* have} books in stacks near my desk, by my chair in the dining room, at the end of the coffee table in the living room, and even on the bed in our spare room. That's just physical books! We also have two ereaders and two Kindle Fires that together have I-don't-know-how-many books on them.

Speaking of those ereaders and the Fires: ebooks to me are just as welcome in my library as physical books. But if I have my way, I'll take the physical book every time. Some great places to get free ebooks are Project Gutenberg,  Archive, Many Books (off shoot of Project Gutenberg), sometimes Amazon, and Barnes and Noble. I have purchased ebooks as well. Sometimes it's better to have the portability over the touch and smell of a book. Not to mention sometimes ebooks are a lot less expensive. 

I do reviews for different companies, like LitFuse, Bethany House, Tyndale, Thomas Nelson, Crossway, and BookCrash so I'm getting at least one new book every month {more and more often sometimes!}. 

The Cuyahoga Public Library is also one of our favorite destinations. We frequent two of the branches on a regular basis. I like CPL because of the selection but also because they are a part of Ohio Link and Search Ohio which enables us to request books from all over Ohio for checkout, and they're delivered to a branch close by. 

I just don't know what I'd do without books. Apparently I would live, since I made it to 2009 without such an extensive personal library. I don't want to have such a small number of books ever again. I'm making sure my kiddos will have a larger personal library than I did when I moved from home. I've started a 'book chest' for each. Well, at least a list of books to include *wink*. I'm still in the process of acquiring the books on the list.