Essentials for the Home Library.
Gentry's Christine VanDeVelde lists here favorite must-have reference books ad guides.

In the age of the internet, I rely on books. When I need a conversion chart for liquid measures, a synonym for unsavory, the proper form for a condolence letter, or a method for the seasonal storage of mattresses, I find it in a book. I like the heft and feel of books, their dust jackets, end papers and bindings. I collect books as objects and keepsakes and there is perpetual competition on the walls of my home between the art and bookshelves. But the paramount reason for my reliance on books is that my approach to everything in life is what some have characterized as academic -- in other words, I over-research everything. So I tend to trust the scholarly.

Now if I want to know the specifications for the Bosch washer/dryer, or to view the selection of spring Manolo Blahniks at Bergdorf Goodman, or -- best of all! -- to order a book from Amazon, then the internet is a wonderful thing. But it is not authoritative. It's home to a lot of crackpots and bad information. So over the years, I have collected a core library of books strictly for reference -- books that explain stain removal from Egyptian cotton, provide a visual guide to the diagnosis of chicken pox, show the location of the Ustyurt Plateau, and can help settle a bet about the Napoleonic Wars.

Here is my list of the essential reference books every home should have, along with the recommendations of some local experts.

I can't live without a superb dictionary, by which I mean a dictionary that makes clear, for example, that "imply" and "infer" cannot be used interchangeably. Most dictionaries make no such distinction, but in The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (4th edition, Houghton Mifflin) you will find a usage note to set you straight on this, as well as thousands of other essentials for effective communication. The knee-jerk reaction to the question of the best dictionary is the Oxford English Dictionary, but it's $3,000, requires a magnifying glass to read the entries, and you can't pick it up and run downstairs with it to prove to everyone at the dinner table that "infer" and "imply" don't mean the same thing.

In addition, you'll want a superior thesaurus, organized both alphabetically and by category. I finally replaced my original Roget's when it was so tattered from overuse that it was held together by a pink rubber band.  Roget's International Thesaurus (5th or 6th edition, Harper Perennial) is the most thorough and the easiest to use.  

Librarian Nick Szegda at the Menlo Park Public Library also recommends the Rand McNally Goode's World Atlas 2004, which includes topographic maps, political maps, and thematic maps depicting features such as population and imports/exports. In addition, he says, it is a perfectly sized hardcover volume, which needs to be taken into account when it comes to atlases. Our outsized National Geographic Atlas of the World is superb, but an unwieldy 19 inches high.

Szegda also likes Bartlett's Familiar Quotations 2002 (17th edition). But I am a fan of The International Thesaurus of Quotations (Harper & Row). In Bartlett's, the quotes are arranged in order from oldest to most recent, and indexed by author and keyword. The International Thesaurus organizes its quotes by category and indexes key words and authors. Bartlett's is fun to peruse on a rainy afternoon or to amuse with a selection of Mark Twain, but I want to be able to go straight to "Middle Age" to find a quote when I have to give a 50th birthday toast.

With almost 7,000 entries on literature, history, religion, philosophy, technology, and science, including Bathsheba and Ebola, Medusa and Mickey Mouse or John Quincy Adams and aerodynamics, The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know (Houghton Mifflin) is a must, too, for students, trivia buffs, and anyone addicted to the New York Times acrostic. Peggy Conaway, Director of the Los Gatos Public Library recommends, as well, The World Almanac and Book of Facts 2006, with over 1,000 pages of facts and figures, including reprints of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, a directory of the entire Federal government and a listing of every community with a population over 5,000. I immediately ordered it!

I would also recommend an excellent and comprehensive book on etiquette for every home. Emily Post's Etiquette: The Definitive Guide to Manners by Peggy Post (17th edition, Harper Collins) is a good guide for social protocol, table manners, invitation wording, sportsmanship and such charming new aspects of social interaction as road rage and spam. I also like any of Judith Martin's Miss Manners books, because she has very high standards and is wont to throw in some advice under the general heading of life that always reminds me of my two maiden aunts, Hazel and Julia, whom I feared and admired for their stance on what constituted appropriate behavior.

Growing up, I was taught many things, but not how to keep house. As a result, when I moved into my first apartment and later my first home, I didn't know how to clean and dust, let alone properly care for wood floors, wash lampshades or launder whites. So, Cheryl Mendelson's books have been invaluable to me. An attorney and fiction writer who is also a devoted housekeeper, Mendelson leaves the decorating to Martha Stewart and digs into the nitty gritty chemistry and daily routine of household cleaning, including such subjects as food storage safety, insurance, and domestic employment law. I still frequently refer to Home Comforts: The Art and Science of Keeping House and Laundry: The Home Comforts Book of Caring for Clothes and Linens (both from Scribner). Also, if you have art, ceramics, silver or other fine objects, you might want to own Caring for Your Cherished Possessions by Mary Kerney Levenstein and Cordelia Frances Biddle.

Every family should also own a good medical guide, since doctors no longer make house calls and, in this field especially, the internet is not a uniformly reliable source of information. Howard Fuller of the Stanford Health Library recommends the following general health books by major institutions: Harvard Medical School Family Health Guide, Mayo Clinic Family Health Book, Merck Manual of Medical Information, Johns Hopkins Family Health Book, and American Medical Association Family Medical Guide. Fuller says the most current editions are, of course, the best. In addition, both Merck and Johns Hopkins offer medical guides for seniors. I have owned the Harvard Medical School guide for years and in the last few months have referred to it for a treatment for shoulder pain, to determine whether or not an eardrum was punctured, and when a teenager should move from a pediatrician to an internist as a primary care physician.

Finally, I am a sucker for organization books and believe that every household should have a place for everything and everything in its place. So I'll let you benefit from my own experience and the thousands of dollars I've spent buying the books churned out by the organizing industry in the last fifteen years. I have found only two that offer real solutions and are written so that those solutions are easy and inexpensive to implement -- Simply Organized! and 30 Days to A Simpler Life, both by former Atherton resident Connie Cox and her coauthor Cris Evatt.  Both books, by the way, offer suggestions for organizing and editing your household's books.

FYI, in future Perspective, we will cover basic books for the kitchen and for a children's library.

Copyright 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2006 Christine VanDeVelde. All rights reserved.