I can’t tell you how it felt to look online and find my daughter’s book collection all thoroughly catalogued. I knew that she had a LibraryThing account where she had kept track of her extensive set of books. But never until just a few moments ago had I looked it up.
Most of her books are boxed up and in storage because our current living situation did not have space for them. In a few weeks, we will be moving to a house where we will be able to organize her books on shelves like she would have wanted. So I had asked her brother and sister recently if I could somehow look her account up — thinking I would need a password or something. Lo and behold, they said that she was identifiable by looking up the author Rosemary Sutcliff. AnnaLeah, they said, owns one of the most extensive Rosemary Sutcliff collections in the world (at least among the LibraryThing membership).
Having a few moments to sit down tonight at the computer while I was actually thinking about it, I decided to try and find her account. She did not use her own name but I was able to sleuth it out, and I found her! I found my daughter.
I found the three books which she was reading when she last posted on her account — quite probably just before her death — knowing AnnaLeah. They were perhaps even with her in the car on that trip to Texas.
She read 47 books in 2013. I even found the last book she ever finished, or at least recorded, on May 2, 2013 — two days before our crash. The Storm by Frederick Buechner
How many more would she have read in that year? How many would she have read in her lifetime? How many more books would she have added to her collection? What books might she have written? What literary worlds might she have created for others to enjoy?
Such a bittersweet treasure to have this part of her who is no more — who had so much more living to do.
AnnaLeah’s 30 Category Booklist
AnnaLeah’s History Reading List
AnnaLeah’s Book List for Danelle
And I’m quite sure, that one of AnnaLeah’s “friends” on Library Thing was her sister, Mary, whose collection was much smaller and not so thoroughly catalogued — but just as treasured, I know. A member since July 12, 2012.
Here are some books — probably from her sister AnnaLeah — which Mary received on her last birthday — August 6, 2012:
Of course, I love the photoshoot which AnnaLeah staged of Mary reading one of AnnaLeah’s books (which Mary had not actually read):
