Thread by @Arby_K

"no one cares about a library collection as much as the person who has assembled it" - Something anyone who has bought more books than they have read will be able to relate easily. 1/9

My dad's was the first library I had seen, brought back after his stint in UAE till 1988. Over the years, he has given away many of the books and these are all that remains.

Ironically, I have not read most of these books, though these would inspire to make my own bookshelf. 2/9

The rare exception would be this one, which I would scour through for Roman Emperors when I was 10. It was perhaps my earliest exposure to History along with Asterix and Tintin. (We had just begun to learn History in school). 3/9

The book had the Kings list of England and Scotland and family trees of royal families. After the Roman Emperors, I expanded to reading about Europe and its History along with preparing lists of Kings in my notes to see who ruled when and where. (No, didn't have Excel then.) 4/9

Of course, this was before we had internet at home. So by 10, I was familiar with Greek independence from Ottomans, Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia, Slovakia, Royal Hungary and so on. Another book from my dad's library was this one, but only few pages remain now. 5/9

And that's where I read about the Kalmar Union and the Treaty of Verdun. I had a pretty full bookshelf by then, but mostly filled with Hardy Boys & Three Investigators. Sadly, most of my old books got ruined after a pipe leak seeped in through the roof. This is from 2009. 6/9

I was away at the time for college and work. But once I got back in 2010, we built a new bookshelf, since the old one wasn't enough. 7/9

And that's almost filled to the brim after a decade, despite minimal purchase since March 2020. The 100 odd Archies digests have been bundled into a lower shelf now. 8/9

And the book list; more than half unread, but a tad above 750, not counting the Archies. I have reviewed some of the ones I have read. 9/9

docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d…