My book about books and life that took me almost 25 years to write is about to take its first steps out the door. A quarter-century! How can anyone write that slowly? Well, okay, I wasn’t working on it the whole time. There was a 22-year lapse in the middle.

The working title: A Reader’s Journey – and What Happened Next. It’s about turning fifty (which I did in 1990) and using books as signposts to relive and even reinvent my life. And it’s about meddling with the manuscript more than twenty years later, in a two-person book club with my younger self.

Our books are organized because I like being able to find a particular book fast, either for my own pleasure or to lend to a person who deserves to read it. Children’s books plus books about writing are in my study, in orange bookcases that used to belong to my son.

Books about birds are in the foyer and the kitchen by the window, near the binoculars.

Fiction and natural history are also in my study, in these white bookcases. I bought them with money from an article I sold to The Washington Post, the one about the annual return of the buzzards to Hinckley, Ohio. Our Maryland friends snickered when we made that pilgrimage to Hinckley. However, the buzzards bought bookcases.

Mysteries are in our bedroom, travel and humor in the guest room, science fiction and philosophy in the family room. There’s even a stack of books in the hall bathroom. I feel vaguely guilty about the house resembling a used book store, but the good news is that there’s brilliant writing wherever I look.

It shouldn’t surprise anyone that I’ve written a book about reading books….

You’ll find an overview, the book’s introduction, and part of Section 1 here on my website. Check it out!