Mourning loss of library

I just finished reading Jaime O’Neill’s essay, “Lost in the flames” (Datebook, Jan. 6). It meant a lot to me. I went through a similar experience.

I am an avid reader. I lost my “library” in the San Bruno fire, in 2010. When we bought that home, I knew immediately that I wanted a wall of bookshelves in the living room. It was the first improvement we made to the house. I made it my mission to find all my favorite books in hardbound. But my most precious books were ones I inherited from my dad. His love of reading gave me a love of reading. As I grew up, his favorite authors became my favorite authors. I had his F. Scott Fitzgerald collection, his Hemingways, his poetry collections. I grew up reading novels no one my age had even heard of, such as “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn” and “How Green Was My Valley.”

Staying at a friend’s home the night of the fire, seeing our house on the news going up in flames, thinking of everything being destroyed, I realized all of my father’s books were lost to me. They meant “home” to me as much as the furniture and the photographs . It was extremely painful. In a strange coincidence, the house we bought after the fire has the same floor plan as our old house (just flipped). I have the same wall to fill with bookcases. But I have no desire to do it again. I just don’t have the heart. I mostly use the public library. And, when I buy books, I give them away after I’ve read them.

When I come across used books like the ones I owned, it doesn’t make me happy, it just reminds me all over again of all that was taken from me. Everyone said, “It was just stuff, you can replace your stuff.” But that’s not really true. I found Jaime O’Neill’s essay comforting; it validated my feelings. Thank you.

Kris O’Neil, San Bruno

I felt so sad for Jaime O’Neill’s having lost his precious library in the Paradise fire; I could not help but picture the loss of my own. I have a trade slip from Green Apple Books in San Francisco that I plan to send him, to help him begin to replenish his library, and have so urged my friends on Facebook, who are mostly in the book business, as I have been these past 40 years or so.

Beverly Langer, San Francisco