LibraryThing to the rescue
After the tour (which was December 9th), we brought the bookcases back inside and put the books back on them. I noticed we were missing quite a few Dick Francis books, so I asked the children to go back to the storage buildings and look again. They found a few more boxes of books, but not the ones by Francis. As the weeks passed, I'd send a child or two out to look again. We searched Steve's office. We searched all cupboards and closets in the house. I even asked the girls to look inside their hope chests, but we didn't find those books.
One day Jacy told me she'd found some Dick Francis books in a milk crate, covered with some stuff belonging to Marley. Jacy said that she'd shelved the books with the other Francis books, and would I like to come check and see if that was all of them?
I went upstairs, looked at the Dick Francis books, and said, "That's not all of them. We're still missing some. About 10 or 12. Keep looking."
A few more weeks pass, and by now I'm so tired of not finding the books, that I've offered a reward - $15 to whoever finds the missing Dick Francis books. This sparks a frenzied search by the younger set, while the older ones roll their eyes and say that every place has been searched, there are no other places to look - and at least one mutters that she already found the books, shelved them, and showed me.
I remember that I catalogued those books on LibraryThing. It will help us if I can see what titles we need to look for, right? Or at least count the number catalogued and compare it to the number on the shelf. (I do believe that I can do arithmetic - I even do pretty well at higher math - but I can count... I think.)
Marley goes upstairs to count the books while I tube up LibraryThing to see what Dick Francis novels we're supposed to have. Marley comes back and says, "Thirty-one." And LibraryThing shows us to have.... 30. Ooops. Time for me to apologize and ask for forgiveness.
Labels: books
2 Comments:
Just signed up for LibraryThing today. We'll see how I do entering all our volumes. I did discover that we have several in common (no surprise), but one title has just two *owners* - you and me :) It's St Elmo by Augusta Jane Evans. I admit to reading only part of it, hoping to complete the story one day.
Dana in GA
PS DD#3 is a big Dick Francis fan.
I read that book back in 1997. Several years later I found an old copy at a library booksale and bought it, but I don't know that I'll ever reread it. I was thinking my daughters might enjoy reading it someday.
DD#3 apparently has good taste. She's in good company anyway, as my godly grandmother loved his books and read and reread them dozens of times. This collection I have was hers, and I'm just now reading through it.
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