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Oh god, my library is ruined
13 years ago
Those of you who are familiar with my life know I just moved back into my mother's house. I was struggling too much to be on my own.
My extensive library - some 500-600 books - was packed into boxes and placed in the garage. I assumed they would be fine there, as our garage has never flooded.
Today, I went into the garage looking for We Need To Talk About Kevin, which I wanted to reread. As I was digging through one of the boxes I got a pretty nasty bite on my hand. It was from a carpenter ant.
The place I was living at was crawling with three types of nasty critters: carpenter ants, maggots, and wasps. Guess what that entire box is infested with.
I started to fucking panic. As I searched through my boxes, I pulled out book after book after book that was ruined by infestation, mold, rot, or water.
All in all, totalling up the loss, I am down some 300 books. Some of those are limited edition prints. One was a book handed down from my GREAT GRANDMOTHER, a beautiful hand-illustrated copy of Grimm's fairy tales. Three of the ruined books were given to me by my deceased father. He wrote in every single one. I will never get those books back.
I haven't cried this hard since my dad died. Even losing pets has not been this devastating. That may sound callous, but for the past seventeen years, I have been collecting books. Books are my life.
My signed copy of I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell has been ruined, as has my favourite copy of Phantom, almost all of the Ender universe books, my ENTIRE REDWALL SERIES, and my Hitchhiker's Guide anthology.
At a MINIMUM this will cost about $4500 to replace. I'm dropping all my prices - badges are now $10, ponies are $8, icons are $3, ref sheets are $20 - to try and begin fixing the damage. I honestly don't even know how to deal with this, other than to try and rebuild my library. Soon I'll be starting a catalogue of all the books that have been ruined if anyone has any titles and feels like donating them.
I just don't even know how to convey how terrible this is for me. I began reading at three, and the first book I really loved and read on my own was Harold's Purple Crayon Treasury. (Also ruined, wasps tore it up.) Since then I've added title after title after title to my library, and I was so immensely proud when I finally hit a hundred books. Then two hundred. Then three, four, six.
I feel like someone has died. I don't know how to deal with this.
My extensive library - some 500-600 books - was packed into boxes and placed in the garage. I assumed they would be fine there, as our garage has never flooded.
Today, I went into the garage looking for We Need To Talk About Kevin, which I wanted to reread. As I was digging through one of the boxes I got a pretty nasty bite on my hand. It was from a carpenter ant.
The place I was living at was crawling with three types of nasty critters: carpenter ants, maggots, and wasps. Guess what that entire box is infested with.
I started to fucking panic. As I searched through my boxes, I pulled out book after book after book that was ruined by infestation, mold, rot, or water.
All in all, totalling up the loss, I am down some 300 books. Some of those are limited edition prints. One was a book handed down from my GREAT GRANDMOTHER, a beautiful hand-illustrated copy of Grimm's fairy tales. Three of the ruined books were given to me by my deceased father. He wrote in every single one. I will never get those books back.
I haven't cried this hard since my dad died. Even losing pets has not been this devastating. That may sound callous, but for the past seventeen years, I have been collecting books. Books are my life.
My signed copy of I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell has been ruined, as has my favourite copy of Phantom, almost all of the Ender universe books, my ENTIRE REDWALL SERIES, and my Hitchhiker's Guide anthology.
At a MINIMUM this will cost about $4500 to replace. I'm dropping all my prices - badges are now $10, ponies are $8, icons are $3, ref sheets are $20 - to try and begin fixing the damage. I honestly don't even know how to deal with this, other than to try and rebuild my library. Soon I'll be starting a catalogue of all the books that have been ruined if anyone has any titles and feels like donating them.
I just don't even know how to convey how terrible this is for me. I began reading at three, and the first book I really loved and read on my own was Harold's Purple Crayon Treasury. (Also ruined, wasps tore it up.) Since then I've added title after title after title to my library, and I was so immensely proud when I finally hit a hundred books. Then two hundred. Then three, four, six.
I feel like someone has died. I don't know how to deal with this.
I hope that you'll be able to rebuild some of your library.
i've lost quite an extensive library myself, including first editions, and signed copies. it just tears you apart. sadly i have little money myself, but i wish you the best.
I did just manage to save There Is A Monster At The End Of This Book, though, which was one of my childhood favourites, so dlkaslfj yay
:D My major one was "The Sleepy Puppy" so I know exaaaactly where you're at. But for real, post up a list and I'll see what extras I've got. My mom and I were notorious for snagging stuff from the school library when she was the head librarian.