Sunday, January 18, 2009

What Kind of Nerd am I?

I didn't have much time but I needed to make this trip. I had been thinking about it all day. It would be quick I told myself. Parking was sparse and you had to fight to find a spot. From the front it looked like nothing more than a small store front. My sister Grace had called me at work earlier that day to tell me about this place and here it was, exactly where she had described. 4 days only and then this window of opportunity would be closed. As I walked through the front door my heart skipped a beat. They were every where. Some were new, some were old. I had had dreams that started like this but they had always ended with me waking up. But this wasn't a dream, this was the Friends of the Library book sale. I was wrong. I didn't have enough time. I bought what I could and made plans to return early the next morning.

Hi, my name is Dan and I'm a book nerd. I love books. Its not so much the reading of the books as it is the collecting of the books. One of the first home improvements that I did was to build a library. I needed it to house my precious books. I've even started cataloging my books. If you show me a comic paper back I can generally tell you if I have it or not. The chances are I do since I have over a 1,000 of them (450 cataloged so far). My antique books collection is a bit smaller but still quite nice. They range in age from 85-350 years old.

Don't ask me why I collect books because I don't have a solid answer for that question. I'm not even sure where this entire collecting stuff comes from. Neither of my parents collect anything. Do you collect something? What kind of nerd are you? Tell me, I must know.

(I couldn't back up are enough to get all of the shelves in these pictures.)
Photobucket
Photobucket

Untitled from Dan Thoms on Vimeo.

4 comments:

sledgeforchrist said...

Now only if you could learn to read.

Doug said...

We have a minor library at our house also, though most are paperbacks, kids books and other such stuff. As to what I collect, I colect nut crackers. I don't know why. I do like them, but I haven't bought one for myself in years. I'm not even sure how my collection started. I guess that I once told one person that I thought nut crackers were interesting and they went and bought some. Another person saw the ones I had and decided I must like them, so they bought more. And so on.

Anonymous said...

I love book sales. I found a great book store yesterday that had some great first edition mountain climbing classics.
I collect too much crap (lately its been passport stamps). But my inheritance from my grandmother will be a shot glass collection, although she doesn't drink. But its a BIG shot glass collection.

Anonymous said...

lol! i love books! <><