Saturday Morning at the Library

 

When I was 5 years old, I was forced to take dancing lessons while the Brother was forced to take accordion lessons. I hated dancing class. The Knights of Columbus Hall where the classes were given had no heat or it wasn't turned on. I hated wearing the pink beginner tights. I liked clacking around in the tap shoes, but Ma wouldn't let me practice inside the house on the wood floors. I spent most of my time in class being miserable and crying. Eventually, I was taken out of class.

While the Brother still had to endure accordion lessons, Dad took me to the library. He would leave me upstairs in the children's library where I could look at the books and choose to take some books home with my own library card. As I got older, I would go downstairs to the adult library and wander among the stacks enjoying the scent of the books before going to find Dad in the reference area consulting the law books and catching up on his work.

So for the next several weeks, a list of my favorite books, some I have read as a child, others as an adult and some  I have read more than once.

This week, The Canterbury Tales  by Geoffrey Chaucer.  Written between 1387 and 1400, The Canterbury Tales is a collection of stories and the first work to be written in vernacular English. A group of 28 pilgrims on their way to visit the shrine of Thomas Becket at Canterbury Cathedral, entertain themselves by telling stories as a contest. The winner determined by Harry Bailey, the proprietor of the Tabard Inn, will receive a free meal. Each pilgrim was supposed to tell two stories on the way to Canterbury and two stories on the way back to London. The work was never completed.

 If you haven't read this book, you can find read it for free online at The Gutenberg Project or find it at your public library or at your favorite bookstore.