Phantoms of the Hudson Valley by Monica Randall

Japanese Flower Arrangement Notebook – Patricia Kroh.Italian Masters Lent by the Royal Italian Government – The Museum of Modern Art, New York 1940.The Practical Encyclopedia of Good Decorating and Home Improvement – Greystone Press.Phantoms of the Hudson Valley – Monica Randall.

I will start downstairs from the back door, move towards the front, and then go upstairs. It might take me a while to list them all, but I plan to list them here. I decided to list my books here as I take inventory of them. My son jokingly said, “I should donate my book to the local library, and they will certainly build a whole wing just for my books.” I have several bookcases around the house. Since I could not go anywhere on vacation for a while because my husband had to have dialysis every day, I immersed myself in books during my free time. My home is packed with books everywhere – downstairs, upstairs, on the hallways, in the kitchen where my cookbooks are, and on the coffee tables and side tables. My library is about 3,000 volumes, give or take a few. My most expensive books came from the Easton Press. The best part was that I got married to someone who had a huge book collection of his own plus some inherited from his parents – civil war books, World War I books, sportsmen’s books, and much more.

By the time I got married in 1970, my book collection had grown tremendously. I also bought accounting and finance books, cookbooks, gardening books, and memoirs. Then I joined the Literary Guild and the Book of the Month Club. My first purchase was The Good Earth by Pearl Buck from the International Collectors Library, where I bought a few books. When I moved to the United States in 1967, I began buying books and slowly but surely began to build my book collection. That obsession grew stronger as I got older. I even had my father add it to his architectural plan when building our home in Manila. When I was in high school, I wished to have my own private library where I could just pick up a book from the shelves and read it at any time I wanted to.

Phantoms of the Hudson Valley by Monica Randall