Luxurious Jazz Age Library Meets Spare Bedroom Book Collection
When mom says we have libraries at home...
The following post is part of a Seed Pod collaboration about libraries. Seed Pods are a SmallStack community project designed to help smaller publications lift each other up by publishing and cross-promoting around a common theme. We’re helping each other plant the seeds for growth!
All the books we own, both read and unread, are the fullest expression of self we have at our disposal… But with each passing year, and with each whimsical purchase, our libraries become more and more able to articulate who we are, whether we read the books or not. - Nick Hornby
I welcomed the end of August with a sigh of relief and a week of celebrating my 37th birthday. Birthdays always feel like a bit of a checkpoint for me. Despite my best efforts, every year I find myself measuring my life against the future I’d envisioned or desired. It felt fitting that my wish for this birthday was to do a bit of time travel with a visit to Richmond’s Agecroft Hall.
Agecroft Hall was built in the 1920’s by a tobacco baron seeking to emulate old European estates, a style en vogue at the time. He purchased a dilapidated 15th century manor in Lancashire, England which was disassembled and shipped piece by piece across the Atlantic to be reassembled in Richmond, Virginia. From the Great Hall filled with leaded glass to gardens bursting with fragrant herbs, it feels like you’ve been transported to Hogwarts. Images materialize of puffing fine cigars in a velvet smoking jacket, hosting tea parties for my high society friends, trying to interject with my opinion in conversations with my husband’s Jazz Age friends and being gently ushered the hell out.
Agecroft was always intended to become a museum some day. It fulfilled its destiny, becoming a house museum interpreting the Tudor Period. And it feels that way - exhibits, not a place anyone would live. The home itself is more an homage to the original than a replica, with an entirely different floorplan. A feast of plastic food awaits imaginary guests on the period appropriate table. Someone in more superstitious times has carved an old witch mark into the wooden panels next to a fireplace, across the room from a dehumidifier.
There is one room that genuinely reflects the family who lived in this place. It’s the last stop on the tour, a room that does not reflect Tudor times. Instead, the owner of the home requested that this room be captured in amber as though she had just finished entertaining guests. It is the Williams family library. 4,000 tomes line the walls surrounding a 17th century walnut banquet table that commands the room. As one might expect the library is stuffed with books on history, Christianity and English architecture. There’s a selection of books by local Richmond authors of the early 20th century and books of classic literature. Then, amid this stuffy selection, there are pop culture novels, travel diaries, books on the exploration of the North Pole.
Amid the splendor, I couldn’t help but envision my own home. The only thing my house and Agecroft have in common is the existence of what could very loosely be referred to as a library. Unlike Agecroft’s cohesive, moody space, mine is a utilitarian spare bedroom holding a hodgepodge of… dare I call them… pieces. An old white blanket is draped over a sofa bed leftover from my husband’s childhood room. My mom’s childhood furniture is also stored here, two mid-century dressers that I regrettably sprayed painted black at one point. A folding table serves as a makeshift desk/vanity where I dry my hair, write postcards and attend the important Zoom calls when I cannot appear curled up on the couch.
And then there is the book collection.
Take a moment to ready yourself.
Now drink it in:
That’s right. Literally dozens of books.
The books rest on shelves of the finest particle board, hastily assembled by yours truly. They hold a rustic charm, with screws accidentally driven through the boards. The shelves cave under the weight of an artfully curated selection of Dungeons and Dragons guidebooks.
Yet, this is an irreplaceable collection to me. This humble assemblage has survived Marie Kondo inspired purges and countless moves. Contained in those pages are my dreams, ambitions, fears, memories.
There’s the shelf weighed down with writing books, a testament to the novel I’ve been drafting for 3.5 years with little to show for it.
There is a tattered copy of The Liars’ Club, another of The Glass Castle - teenage favorites that miraculously survived an extensive period of couch surfing and brief stint living in an extended stay hotel in my early 20s.
My father’s childhood Bible is on the shelf, his favorite passages annotated. It’s still wrapped in white satin from being carried down the aisle as a rose covered Bible bouquet. My grandfather’s beat up copy of Houses of Old Richmond is stacked on top of my mom’s college art textbook. There are novels gifted and recommended to me by friends and family.
There is even evidence of my criminal past - a 15 year overdue copy of Ploughshares into Swords that was supposed to have been returned to John Tyler Community College in 2009. They ended up withholding part of my tax return to repay that, so don’t worry, I didn’t go unpunished for that little caper.
Copies of Anna Karenina, The Brothers Karamazov and an old English copy of The Canterbury Tales, spines shamefully uncracked. A harsh reality check that the intellectual woman I am in my head is more likely to read a pop history novel about salt or shipwrecks or witches.
The office library isn’t the only book repository in the house. There’s a cache of cookbooks in my kitchen and an anthology of Hunter S. Thompson in my husband’s man cave. The prettier books get to serve double duty as decoration in my living room. In total, we have around 250 physical books in this household. I know this because I counted them up for this post.
It’s not a collection built to impress or curated to achieve an aesthetic. However, it is what makes my house feel like a home. It’s a collection forged piece by piece over a lifetime. It’s a physical manifestation of dreams achieved. I spent so many years looking at the giant picture of Neuschwanstein on the cover of a coffee table book. I don’t believe in manifesting, but if I did I would think maybe that’s how I ended up on a rainy day in Bavaria resting my eyes on the castle’s gorgeous turrets and towers.
But the most important part is my collection of unread books. My “To Be Read”, some may say. And here’s why.
I have struggled my entire life with anxiety, locked in a battle where the future is something to view with skepticism and fear. On the darkest days, I questioned whether the future was something I wanted to experience at all. My TBR stack represents that this is no longer my mindset. It’s a tangible reminder that I no longer anticipate a bleak future. A reminder of things to look forward to, bite sized slivers of excitement for the days to come in the form of ink and paper.
My TBR says “The sun will rise tomorrow and you’ll be there to greet it (albeit angrily) with at least a good book to look forward to.”
It is in this way that my library is different from that Jazz Age Howarts chamber. My library is ever evolving, never frozen in time. With a nod to the past, a dog-eared novel open by my side and a stack of books waiting to be read, it’s a place that transcends time.
Including library due dates. You’ll never get that book back, John Tyler.
Until next time,
Your turn!
Where do you store your book collection?
Do you prefer lots of physical books or a capsule collection?
Do you have a dream library?
Let me know in the comments!
Want to see more posts from this Seed Pod or join in on the fun? Head over to our thread to learn more!
Gabriella, I absolutely adore you. Perfectly designed libraries are wonderful but what's better is a real life with books. And that's what YOU have. 🤓📚🥰
What a fun post, I love getting a glimpse at personal libraries! Cute rainbow collection in your living room. Mine is currently three tall piles on my office floor. I'm hoping to upgrade to a one of "the finest particle board" towers in the near future - just waiting for the perfect one to present itself. Really loved and connected to what you wrote about your tbr books. Little glimmers to look forward to. ✨