M. Suzanne Terry

My dream home is one that has space for all the books I aspire to own. It will have several bookcases for nonfiction, two bookcases in or near the kitchen for all my cookbooks and foodie books (basically anything with a recipe in it), a large bookcase or two for my feminism/political science/sociology section, and a small bookcase for music.

As for fiction, I want one bookcase for every letter of the alphabet. That does not mean, of course, that I will have enough books in each letter to fill a bookcase. Some will overlap. I mean, I love Anna Quindlen, but I will never have as many Q’s as I have A’s (because Allende and Alvarez…also Austin…suffice it to say there are a lot of A’s). But just imagine – 26 bookshelves, all full of fiction. I’d never want to leave the house.

L is another letter that could use its own bookcase. As it is, it takes up two and a half shelves.The L shelves are the reason that my fiction and nonfiction are currently mixed together; I just can’t bring myself to separate Anne Lamott’s memoirs from her fiction. I want to keep all those babies together. Ditto for Jen Lancaster and C. S. Lewis.

The section of the L Shelves that I have pictured above highlight three of my favorite women to read. Anne Lamott spoke to a lot of my misgivings with various churches I attended and let me know I wasn’t all alone in the world. Jen Lancaster (shout out to Maggie for introducing me to Jen Lancaster, or JenLan as…only Maggie and I…call her) and Jenny Lawson started out as writers of blogs that I love and now have written books that I love. The L’s need their own bookcase so that I have room to own everything they ever write.

Any time I lack motivation or ambition, I just think of how glorious all those bookshelves will be, and it drives me.

What drives you?

I am writing 31 Days about my shelves and all the love I store on them.

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The hand is the only part of me that can reach this shelf…and just barely.

Up high on one of my shelves lives the start of a collection of books that remind me of my junior high years. I loved and read the whole Sweet Valley High saga. As I put down my Barbie dolls, I picked up Elizabeth and Jessica Wakefield and fell right into their world.

All my friends who read them identified as either a Jessica – wild, spontaneous, carefree – or an Elizabeth – responsible, studious, thoughtful – even though no one I knew actually fell into only one category. My friend C was a Jessica. My friend K was an Elizabeth. I thought I was totally an Elizabeth but wanted to be more of a Jessica. Jessica seemed to have more fun.

The one aspect of Elizabeth that I really coveted was her boyfriend Todd. Alas, there was no Todd in my life.

Some people gleefully devoured Sweet Valley Kids and Sweet Valley Twins, but I was a purist. I stuck to canon.

My goal is to own the whole series. I keep watching for them at library sales and keep track of prices on Amazon and various other used book sites.

Do you collect any series? Which one(s)?

I’m showing and telling you about the books I love this month.

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It’s an unusual year when a Toni Morrison book goes unchallenged. Translation: read more Toni Morrison.

Last week was Banned Books Week. Banned Books Week is a yearly program established by the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom. The point of the week is to celebrate the freedom to read – to read any and everything one chooses – and to oppose being told what not to read.

I wish every week was Banned Books Week.

Challenges to certain books being on library shelves is more than censorship. It is cowardice. It is ignorance. In faith-based circles, it is a glaring lack of faith.

Fear of the written word is not unfounded. Words are powerful. But rather than being a reason not to read – to shelter ourselves from the scary things – it is a reason to read more. To march bravely into that which frightens us. Often, we will find more good there than evil. Often, it is the place we find God.

Our tendency to cower and avoid things that we don’t instantly understand doesn’t just cause us to miss out on beautiful literature, breathtaking poetry, and raw human prose.

It dumbs us down. It reduces our understanding of human experience to that which is strictly our own personal experience. It whitewashes everything that is not our experience so that it doesn’t seem real.

It robs us of compassion. Failure to read stories that are different from our own perspective is like putting on blinders. It makes us cynical and distrusting. Cynicism breeds contempt. Contempt destroys compassion.

In an electorate that takes foolish pride in how much it rejects, it allows us to remain uninformed, gullible sheep (only less useful and cute).

It’s why, instead of real debates and platforms during election years, we get the circus (I need a new metaphor; circus performers are way more organized than that.).

One of my favorite Humans of New York posts gives a great piece of advice. If you want to change the world, read books by people you disagree with. I am not sure where Brandon Stanton first heard this nugget of wisdom, but it’s solid. I would make it even broader, though.

If you want to change the world – read. Read everything. Read things you like. Read things you don’t like. Read things you never knew you would like until you read them.

I challenge myself to at least one specific reading goal a year. Next year, it’s going to be reading everything on this list that I haven’t already read. Next year is my banned books year.

What book has challenged you the most?

I am taking shelfies and writing about them this month.

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