"A room without books is like a body without a soul." - Cicero

I like to have books around me. Books to read, books to look at, books to smell and feel and clutch. I like books, a lot. And I like to be within a few steps of one, no matter where I'm at. You know, just in case I decide to drop everything and plop down with a book for a moment - or an hour.

I got to wondering if we have books in every room of our house, and so I went on a scavenger hunt of sorts.

The lahhbrary seems the obvious place to start. Lots of books here.

Travel books.

A few of these are very old books that are gifts from Rob's grandfather, passed down through the generations. The Riverside Shakespeare was a gift to me from my high school English department.

I keep my (growing) stack of knitting books in the guestudio. These are some of my favorite books because they have beautiful photographs and each pattern is a puzzle to figure out. And because with these books I can make plans. I love making plans.

Also in the guest room I keep a book on the nightstand, tucked under the alarm clock. Just in case our guests want to read before falling asleep. Back when Winnie the Pooh was on the walls, the nightstand book was The Tao of Pooh. Now it's Yarn Harlot. Each is good for guests because it has short sections and can be appreciated without being read in its entirety.

Bonus! Books in the hallway.

In our bedroom, there's a stack of books on my nightstand. On top is whatever book I'm currently reading, and then the rest are ones I sometimes turn to instead. Poetry is especially nice for settling me into sleep. And The Evolution of Useful Things, while quite interesting, is particularly useful for making me drowsy.

Then we come to the living room, and the coffee table books. They rest happily, basking in the sun, on a bench Rob's grandfather made. These are mostly photography collections, with the requisite Calvin & Hobbes. But my favorite book - perhaps in the whole house - is The New York Times: The Complete Front Pages. Surprisingly, this volume is quite the hit at parties. But then, we have geeky friends. We also have geeky cats - that Maylee is quite the bookworm.

Cookbooks in the kitchen. Like the knitting books, I like to dream over these. Often with a glass of wine. There are lots more behind a cabinet door, but these are the ones I keep at my fingertips. Although I'll admit Julia Child's is mostly for display.

The dining room nearly stumps me. The only books here are of piano music, which provides a different sort of reading, I suppose. You can almost always find a magazine or two on the table, though.

So. It seems the only rooms in our house that don't have reading material are the bathrooms, if you can believe that.