The evidence speaks for itself. Guilty.

Of amassing a citadel-full of books. For we are a book-loving, an avariciously book-loving family. I could add full-stop, but it's inappropriate, since we are also committed to reading all those books, for reading is our most favourite and valued activity as thinking human beings, curious about everything around us.

When we were children together, 14, and 15 years of age, one of the many and particularly special activities we undertook together was to visit our local library. We shared a passion even then, for literature. One of the first expenses we incurred together when we were first married at 18, was to 'join' a book-of-the-month club, and on our meagre income, would buy books offered by mail, at a pittance of the price, needless to say, sixty years ago, than books now sell for.

Over the years we amassed a treasury of books, classics that are meant to be kept, to be consulted on occasion, and to give assurance to the owner that the words of wisdom and beauty of language, and range of experiences contained therein could be assessed at will, at any time, in one's own space. Our raw greed for books has never diminished. Each time my husband goes out to the library, he looks about at the small area operated by 'friends of the library', where donated books and de-acquisitioned books are displayed for sale, at giveaway prices.

This past Saturday he came back from the library with a typical -- well, a few more than usual, to be truthful -- load of books to add to our already-voluminous library at home. Oh yes, we do have our own library, a room devoted to shelves of books. One of the first things my husband did when we moved into our current home was to transform a rather open room overlooking the foyer, into a book-shelved library. He used lumber from British Columbia lodgepole pine to produce the shelving.

For me he brought back A Woman Among Warlords - the Extraordinary Story of an Afghan Who Dared to Raise her Voice, Malalai Joya; Hana's Suitcase by Karen Levine, and Into the Silence, The Great War, Mallory, and the Conquest of Everest by Wade Davis. My husband didn't realize we already own a copy of the last one, and I read it and found it superbly written and ultra-fascinating; he has not yet read it but I will now urge him to.

For himself he brought back Xenophon's Retreat, Greece, Persia & The End Of The Golden Age by Robin Waterfield (this is one I'll read, too), The First Inspector Morse Omnibus by Colin Dexter and Great Books, My Adventures with Homer, Rousseau, Woolf, and Other Indestructible Writers of the Western World by David Denby. Oh yes, and a veritable tome of a love paean to Chocolate and Coffee containing a full range of mouth-watering recipes, which we will both share.

More fodder for our reading passion.

This is what my night table looks like:

And here is a bookshelf in the basement study:

Here bookshelves in the basement exercise room:

Another:

Yet another:

The coffee table in the family room:

Bookshelf in the upstairs hallway:

Bookshelf in a spare bedroom:

Soon there will be no room left for the people who value these books to move comfortably around while selecting the next book they mean to devour....