Very recently, I was given a copy of Enrich Fromm’s To Have or To Be, by a loved one. Great! Another good read to add to my library, from someone close to me who knows how much I love good books! Well, this was my initial thought, not realizing that this book would very much be the demise of my precious library as I knew it. Ironically, I’ve been sloughing off chunks of it daily since I began reading Fromm.

 

I have always taken much pride in my vast library of hundreds and hundreds of books of all kinds. I’d dote over my library much like a gardener would their garden, carefully keeping it well rounded, neat and beautifully categorized. For years I have been a bibliophile in the true sense of the term -- as one who is a collector and lover of books. My library consists of subject areas (not unlike any public library) with headings including Classics, African lit, African American lit, Foreign Studies, Biographies/Memoir, Reference, Psychology, Health, Cookbooks, Art, Philosophy & Religion/Spirituality, and so on. I even have a section dedicated to my yearbooks from middle school through university years.

 

My library has been characterized by over a dozen bookcases packed with volumes ranging from autographed first edition collector’s items to select historical magazines, to my children’s books, books of my peers, and mentors, select text books from my undergraduate and graduate studies, and a collection of film and software. As a lifetime diarist there are my journals of three decades, as well as the collected journals of famous and obscure persons; and as a writer, of course there are books I’m writing and have written. 

 

Fromm studied sociology and psychoanalysis and immigrated to the United States in the early 30’s as a member of the Frankfurt School of Social Thinkers. To Have or To Be was written back in 1976, and it is described as “one of the seminal books of the second half of the 20^th century.” In it, Fromm posits this notion of two modes of existence =>