So if you’ve been following my posts or if you know a little bit about me, you would know that I love to read. This post may not have to do with my love of desserts or being a pastry chef, but it needs to be told as reading and the yearn for knowledge has a lot to do with me.

I can happily say that I come by reading honestly as everyone in my family loves to read and we have all amassed a somewhat large collection of books. Because of this gift that has been passed down to me and one that I grasped tightly while making my way through school, it has opened up worlds to me that I would otherwise not have known.

Because of my love of reading, I have taught myself many things to do with my craft as a pastry chef (I have over 70 pastry related books and tons of pastry magazines) learned how to prepare myself for the sometimes harsh realities of life lessons and it has driven my quest for endless knowledge.

Recently, I had the chance to go through my grandfather’s library that he left behind. When he passed, my grandmother told the family to go through the library, take what we wanted with the remainder to be donated at some point. Well that point came as of last week. I had a bee in my bonnet (also maybe I shouldn’t have read all those magazine articles about organizing your home) and decided 14 years was long enough to have these books hanging around.

With a motley collection of boxes, a black marker and sheer determination I began the huge task of going through and getting rid of my grandpa’s beloved library of books. Why, you may ask did it take 14 years to get to this? Mostly it was the sheer size of the collection that made procrastination possible. I didn’t count the books, but conservatively I think there was close to 2000 of them. That doesn’t include the magazines or the encyclopedia’s. And the stamps, oh the stamps.

Here are some things I learned about my grandpa while sorting through the dusty tomes:

1) I completely underestimated my grandfather’s love for England. I had the pleasure of accompanying him twice to that beautiful country. However he was obsessed with it.

2) He possessed every book ever published on World War 2.

3) He knew the proper method of shorthand and had many books on the subject.

4) If my grandpa didn’t have a bookmark close at hand, he would use a candy wrapper. I’m positive that the brown smudges I found on a few pages were the mark of a chocolate thump print. (And ‘Gramps if you are reading this, Grandma always knew when you snuck chocolate and that you hid them in your book shelves.)

5) My grandpa had a huge collection of stamps and I found lots of them in tucked away in between pages of the books or among magazine issues. That doesn’t include the stamp albums.

6) He left behind 18 magazine subscriptions including National Geographic from the early 1960’s and magazine’s that one could only buy in England. I told you he loved that country.

Every book had to be thumbed through in case he left behind a vast fortune and forgot to tell someone about it. Believe me, if you knew him, you wouldn’t be surprised at that. There wasn’t a book in his library that I didn’t touch. I didn’t find money (please see the above mentioned loose stamps I came across) but if you need a bookmark, I’m your gal. I found hundreds of them.

In every book, my grandpa left a label with his name on it, and in most cases if 1 label wasn’t enough, 2 was even better. Have you ever tried to remove a label that has been applied to something eon’s ago? No small task. Hence the black marker. I used it to colour over his name as the majority of books were to be donated.

To rid of the books, I made countless trips to book donation bins through the city. Because there was so many books to get rid of, I took to going to different bins wearing a cloak, hat and Jackie O sunglasses in case anybody recognized me as the bin filling bandit. It felt like a very mixed up version of spy vs spy with me sneaking around in broad daylight. Sheesh. I felt a tad self-conscious when people were starring at the amount of boxes I was shuffling towards the book bins. Geez, haven’t people seen books before?

I hate to say it, but there were some books that didn’t end up anywhere other then the recycling bin. Those included were outdated encyclopedia’s, damaged books and magazine after magazine. And before you ask, yes I’m sure there was things that could have been sold on Ebay. But I don’t have the interest or time to list and sell. My selling days are done. However, I do have a couple boxes set aside filled with some interesting books for my mother-in-law, Val as she does Ebay. Sorry Pat, but it’s true. I couldn’t help myself.

All in all, it took me a good week, about 7 solid hours a day to go through what was left of my grandpa’s collection. I packed and moved close to 40 boxes of books with about 20 books per box. I also made 6 trips to the book bins, 2 to Value Village and 2 to the recycling depots.

The books were in the basement of my grandparents house so I carried the boxes of books up 15 very steep stairs to get them out to the car. There are still over half of the magazine subscriptions sitting there waiting for a home, and I imagine, they’ll go like the others did to the recycling bin.

It was a lot of fun to go through the library and I learned a lot about the man who visited countless book sales and lovingly built his library book by book. It was quite a feat when you think about all the times my grandparents moved around the country and these books were packed and moved off to the next destination.

Although I didn’t share his taste in books (there’s few who did) I do share his love of a great story, okay and maybe a candy or too.