The Book I Will Never Part With

Unfortunately, over the years I have had to part with books. This has happened for a variety of reasons, usually due to lack of space. It is always painful, but I would prefer to make room for new books than have boxes of books sitting around in the basement doing no one any good. I do have one book that, no matter how many times my husband says, "Do you really need this?" I will never part with.

My dictionary

"Why?" you might ask. Mainly sentimental reasons. I vividly remember when I received this as a Christmas gift. From the same uncle that took me to get my first library card. Did he know me, or what?

It's spelled John, but I was 10

I thought this book was beautiful, with the gold on the page edges and slightly padded cover. It was also the biggest book I owned. Way better than the children's dictionary that I have since parted ways with.

And this wasn't just a dictionary. There are also some special sections in the back. My favorite being the presidential section.

The other thing I loved? It contained President George Bush, the first one. Not that I had any particular fondness for him, but he was elected in the 1988 election. This was Christmas 1989. That shows just how new this book was.

Remember, this was back before the internet, when we had to use the World Book Encyclopedia and card catalogs to find information. So yes, I was pretty excited to have such an up-to-date dictionary.

And that is why I will never part with this book. Even though when I want to look something up now I just go to Google or dictionary.com. And my children are going to learn how to look up words in an old-fashioned dictionary whether they think they need to know or not.

Now that I have shown just how nerdy I was (and still am), how about you? Any particular books you will never part with?