I became hooked on reading at an impressionable age and have never looked back with any regrets; other than a possible fear I might one day run out of books to read.
“HA!” my wife might exclaim as she reads the above sentence. “A big fat double HA HA!” might be her reaction to my expressing concern about ever being without a book to read.
You see, my finding a day without a book within arms reach ain’t ever gonna happen. No way, no how. You see, in addition to possessing a healthy lifelong reading addiction I also had the good fortune to have purchased way more books than even a reading nerd such as myself could ever read in a lifetime. Maybe even two lifetimes. And, I keep buying more, more, more books.
An inventory of bookcases and wall shelves indicates we have nine such units in the house and my wife has been quite firm, adamant even, there will be no more added to any of the rooms.
Grudgingly I must agree. There just isn’t any other place to add another repository for books.
With that said, once a year I box up the surplus and donate them either to the Otsego County Library or Gaylord’s American Association of University Women for their annual used book fundraisers. Good causes both. At least this way I can feel good knowing somewhere out there someone will be deriving enjoyment from a used Ian Rankin Edinburgh mystery or yet another book of science or nature essays which gave me pleasure in the past.
Several years ago I stumbled upon a Little Free Library while on a walk with my son and his two dogs, Molly and Ruby, in downtown Clawson where he lives.
If you aren’t familiar with the concept it is simply a cute little houselike structure attached to the top of a post and stocked with a couple dozen books which people can simply take to enjoy and return or exchange with other readers. It is reading anarchy in its most basic form. Take a book, leave a book. With 150,000 sites worldwide that works out to a lot of delightful anarchy in reading.
Needless to say I fell in love with the idea and have noticed several more of these free lending libraries during my travels.
With a vast overstock of books I plotted how I, too, might join this vast underground network of anarchy in reading. My wife suggested I build a free library for our front yard. I nixed the idea seeing as we live out in the boonies of Elmira Township with only a few of our neighbors occasionally walking past the house for exercise or vehicles speeding by at 55-plus miles an hour.
No, a free library in front of the house didn’t seem to be a doable thing.
Then, last fall, enjoying a beer inside Elder Piper Brewery in Petoskey, I noticed a bookcase serving as a free library of sorts. “Eureka!” I thought. “Maybe this could be a thing at Gaylord’s Snowbelt Brewery.”
Starting a free lending library at Snowbelt, as it turned out, was, as they say, easy peasy.
I sent an email to Snowbelt owners Angielena and Nate Mullenberg, and Angielena responded they were enthusiastically on board. I arranged to buy a small shelving unit and packed up two boxes of adult fiction and non-fiction as well as some of my kids’ old chapter and picture books. Easy peasy indeed.
I wasn’t surprised Snowbelt was supportive of this community reading inspired undertaking. After all, they host regular events such as live indoor and outdoor concerts, Saturday yoga classes, trivia and jigsaw puzzle nights and even a flytying class which I saw in action on a recent taco Tuesday night. Angielena said the lending library would fit right in with a book club idea the brewery was considering.
I made a little flyer explaining how the whole thing worked; which read, in part:
“Snowbelt Little Free Library — Take a book leave a book — community free lending library … See a book you like — take it, read it, return it; or not. It’s easy-peasy. Anarchy in reading. Power to the readers, write on … Now dive in — pick out a book, grab a beer, sit back, sip and read.”
And so on a cold, blowy, snowy end-of January afternoon I arrived at the brewery with two boxes of books in hand.
I unpacked the books onto the shelving unit and the Snowbelt lending library was open for business.
Communities in action — even something as small and simple as a place to distribute books for the low, low price of free. Sort of like a real library.
Reading anarchy indeed!
Michael Jones is a columnist and former staff writer for the Gaylord Herald Times. He can be contacted at mfomike2@hotmail.com.
This article originally appeared on The Petoskey News-Review: Keep it Simple: Local brewery has a little secret | Opinion
Reporting by Michael Jones, The Petoskey News-Review / The Petoskey News-Review
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