Ode to the Library

One of my favorite things about being unemployed is that I've learned to use more of our suburb's free services, like the library. I love collecting books and filling the built-in bookshelves my father-in-law recently made for us, but I hate having books that I will never want to loan out or want to revisit. And, though I love nothing more than supporting a good independent bookstore (watch for a future post, Ode to The Book Cellar in Lincoln Square - wine and books!), our public library has what I need about 99 percent of the time.

This morning, I stopped in to see if they had any recent baby name books. This just seems like one of those items that should be borrowed, not bought. They had at least thirty books on their shelves, most of which claimed to be the "best ever!" (Come on, list makers, you can't all have come up with the "best in the world.") They even had a handful on Celtic and Irish names.

On my way out, I noticed the library staff was moving some of the CD and DVD collections, so I stopped to flip through some. In 90 seconds of browsing the "Rock" section, I picked up three CDs:

The White Stripes, Icky Thump - These two seem like they'd be hard to have a conversation with, but I really love their creativity. Meant to buy this when it came out, and *poof!* there it was, free for the borrowing.

The Who, Who's Next - The Who reminds me of my childhood. In fact, my siblings instantly imitate the dance I used to do "You Better You Bet" when I was six or seven when they hear the song. I was never inclined to go out and buy or even download their greatest hits, but I catch myself singing along to their songs on the radio. ("Behind Blue Eyes" in particular.) As I write this, I realize "Substitute" is not on here and I need to get that into my collection - love the lyrics on that one.

Nirvana, Nevermind - This album came out when I was a senior in high school. It's just a really memorable, solid collection of songs that makes me think of my last year at home and all the pointless hanging out we did back then. I used to own it, or a cassette copy of it, but it sadly drowned in the big apartment flood of '97. I've missed you, baby grabbing the dollar.

When someone recently suggested borrowing CDs from the library, I was picturing a selection including the soundtrack to "The Lawrence Welk Show" and multiple copies of An Intimate Evening with Anne Murray. Now I realize much of the CDs in the library's collection are mostly donated by people like me, who are trying to declutter their CD collections in the age of the iPod.