A Plan for Visits to the Library

​By Mary Scanlan, originally published in the July 2024 issue of the 1666 Coffman Newsletter

When Tom and I first began making plans to simplify our lives by selling our house and moving to a more compact space, one of my first thoughts was that we had to move to 1666 Coffman. It was adjacent to our St. Anthony Park neighborhood, it was a beautiful building, Tom and I were both eligible ​(Tom taught in the Rhetoric Department, and I worked for several years in the German Department), and it had a Library!

We moved here in July of 2021. I have been exceedingly slow in unpacking and organizing our new lives. However, whenever I have felt stressed out, I go to the Library, browse the shelves, revisit books that have brought me pleasure, spend time paging through the Recently Arrived books section, check out a book I want to read—and then I leave the Library feeling refreshed and happy.

At the moment, I have developed a plan for my library visits. I now own two books (one I bought, one was given to me by a friend) that contain long lists of books that the authors consider worth reading. One, 100 Novels That Changed the World by Colin Salter, gives a one-page summary of each book along with a brief commentary on why the book is important. The other, The End of Your Life Book Club by Will Scwalbe, is a memoir that covers the last two years that Will spent connecting with his mother as she battled cancer. The two of them loved books. Picking out their favorites and reading and discussing them together energized both of them. The book is a positive portrayal of the power of words.

​Many of the titles mentioned in these books are in our library. I am planning to donate both of these books to our collection. I hope that you, too, will find them useful.