Persimmon Glen

I have a confession to make. I am a bibliophile. This is something that seems to  slowly creep up on you and takes you by surprise.

I have always loved reading, even as a child I would devour the written word in any  form imaginable, even to the back of the cereal box or the intructions on a shampoo  bottle. I haunted the libraries as a young lady with no budget to buy new and I viewed bookstores as an enemy at times, because they put all  that temptation out there and I didn't have the money to buy.  I would borrow from the library as  many as were allowed to check out at once and was rarely late in turning them back  in, but when I was, I didn't mind paying the fee, as I thought that would only help  the library to purchase new books for me to peruse.

I never was a reader of much fiction. I prefered books that I could learn from, be  they medical reference or herbals to how-to books of all kinds. Along came thrift stores and yard sales, and I gradually picked up a nice little  collection of books, mostly herbals and  back to the land types. Subjects that would  stay on my shelves forever. Once in awhile I would pick up a book just for the looks  of it, for I loved old books and how they looked on a shelf.  If I ever bought a new book, it would never be a novel, for whats the use of paying  $20 for a book I will read once in less than a week and have no more use for?

About eight years ago I discovered books on the internet. I was browsing the web  and chanced upon a site that would allow anyone to sell a book through their  website and make money. A bright light went off in my mind and I was flooded with  a sense that this was what I had been searching for all of my life. I methodically  went through my small collection of books which amounted to about a hundred,  checked to see how much they were worth to someone on the ether that is the internet, and painfully decided whether or not I could part with any of them. Most had  no value to anyone other then myself, but then I came upon a small paperback  about  90 pages long that I had picked up at a yard sale for ten cents. It was on Tae kwan do, or  jujitsu or something or another and it was worth ninety dollars! Suddenly it wasn't  the least bit painful to part with, and so I listed it for sale. Within 2 days it sold and  I was happily packing it up to ship to the new owner. I had started a new business  that lasted for five years.

It was a business that I dearly loved. I could work from  home, browse thrift stores, yard sales , and library book sales for a living. As a  newbie to the business, I picked up lots of clunkers because I had no idea what made  a book valuable, but I had set a limit of about .50 for a paperback and a dollar for a  hardback so I wouldn't be out much if it wasn't worth anything. 

Gradually my business grew, I learned all about first editions, bindings, octo's  quarto's, conditions and how to describe an old leatherbound volume in booksellers  terms and what type of books would be worth more than another. I built my own website and was a member of several venerable booksellers institutions. I shipped  books around the world daily and delighted in every moment.

I ended up specializing in old and rare childrens books, mainly because I had found  an almost inexhaustible supply of them. I was amazed at the prices that collectors  would pay. I had  many books that sold for $100, $200, $300 and on to $500, and all  I had to do was find them, research their values, describe them correctly, list them  for sale and put them on a shelf until a new home was found.

After 5 years I had approximately 10,000 books listed for sale and a roomful of boxes  filled to the ceiling and a storage unit waiting for  me to get to them. I was  surrounded by books, everywhere I looked. I  bought a storage unit to house the  shelves full of books, ( which is what I live in now) each in their own category from novels to health to poetry to  new age and many more. I had 75 categories of books and my own private bookstore  to peruse all I liked. One of the best perks is being able to keep the ones I wanted  for my own collection.

Alas, all good things must come to an end. Everybody and their brother got in on it, and each one would price their book at least a penny below the  next one, until they had driven the prices down so much there wasn't any profitability in it. I sold my business and went back to a regular job. Which actually  was good in a way. I needed to be out among people again. When you work from  home life can get pretty lonely at times.

Now I have a wonderful collection of books on many subjects. I have over a hundred  cookbooks, I have a huge collection of metaphysical subjects, histories and beliefs of  various religions, herbals, homesteading and sustainable practices, histories of  Scotland and Ireland, many various other subjects, I even collect books about books! I couldn't part with any of them.

My tiny house has 3 tall bookcases overflowing with  books and many more in boxes in storage waiting for the day that I have more room  to keep them displayed.

Yes, I am a bibliophile. I love the look and the feel and the smell of books.  My most recent purchase is from a guy named Lamar Alexander who has written a wonderful book called Simple Solar Homesteading. He sells it mainly as an e-book and you can find it here.

I don't like e-books as I want to touch and feel, and curl up on the couch with them, so when I purchased this, I tried a half dozen times and couldn't get it to download to my computer, (must've been my aversion) so I wrote and asked him to send me a printed copy, which arrived within a few days. I devoured this book in an evening and  it will join my other books on the shelves of which I will never part.

So now, I scour the internet to add to my collections, and I do appraisal work and have a rare book search service. So if you've been searching for a favorite book and can't find it, let me know. If there is one anywhere in the world, I bet I can find it for you. Buying used books is one of the greenest things you can do. It saves trees and one of the best ways to recycle.

Happy Reading!