Building Our Library

“You can never get a cup of coffee large enough or a book long enough to suit me.”

– C.S. Lewis

As a child, I constantly saw my parents reading. Written texts filled our home and were a part of our every day life. My favorite time of day was just before bed when we used to read as a family. My dad would pick up a book and take his place sitting on the soft carpet floor with a large reading pillow that had been gifted to him one marvelous Christmas.  My sister and I would curl up next to him and listen to him read. Old Mother West Wind, was always a hit. As we became older, reading time included more authors like Dahl and Cleary and then transitioned to the magnum opus of J.R.R. Tolkien. In grade school, I blew through the summer reading lists before the vacation even started. In high school, my favorite hangout was a small second hand book store downtown Naperville, Illinois that had rows and rows of beautifully crafted books worn with an artistic patina that comes from being read lovingly over and over.

This joy of reading never changed and has stayed constant throughout all the stages of my life. These days, I cherish moments of quiet solitude where I can sip on a hand crafted latte and dive into a good book. However, with two toddlers, reading doesn’t always look like that. Usually it closely resembles the reading of my childhood with one little girl nestled under each arm and a children’s book in my hands.

Naturally, when my husband and I started designing our current fixer upper, we opted to include a library. With a set of four year old twins that simply devour books, this space begged for a home library where our family could share this passion for reading. When I started organizing my book collection and preparing a catalog to record all of our texts prior to shelving them, my husband suggested creating a blog and posting some book reviews to share with others. Hence, the idea for this site was born. I’ll be posting book reviews as I read with some coffee related content as well. My husband is still in the process of creating our built ins for the library, so I’ll make sure to share pictures as we go. So grab a cup of coffee, choose a cozy spot and let’s chat about books.