Phooey! Forget Reading with Intention. Read with Wild Abandon.

Borrow as Many Library Books as You Can, 15 Minutes at a Time.

The word intention is this year’s buzz word. It’s been applied to everything ranging from cooking to knitting to typing to trips. Writers, prognosticators and educators suggest that do whatever you’re doing with intention.

Forget that advice. What if you did something you want to do with wild abandon? Whatever is your heart’s desire, doing it now and as much as you can possibly can and for as long as possible.

So that’s how I’ve ended up with more than 20 library books on a shelf right now for the past four months really. That’s how I’ve ended up exploring as many subjects in hardcover books and paperbacks. And that’s absolutely how I plan to exploring life right now in 2026, all through library books.

I have an interest in the Nash automobile, so I checked out The Metropolitan Story, about a specific car model. I’ve a growing interest in memorizing books, so I borrowed a book of 100 poem on display for National Poetry Month. The New York Times Book review prompted me to borrow Two Women Living Together and Berlin Shuffle; Substack, Stoner (encouraged by Petya K. Grady)

I bought a block of end-grain maple for wood engraving and that led to me check out two books related to the topic - xxx and xxx. My love for letter writing brough The Letters of Vincent Van Gogh, Dear Genius and the Selected Letters of John Updike in to my life.

My general love for libraries led me to borrow The Library at Night, Ex Libris: A Common Reader and a Philosophy of Walking.

Only a message like the one below brings me to screeching halt.

More than I care to admit, this red bar with white text with TOO MANY RENEWALS has forced me to return more than a few books too soon, but I must even though I’m no longer on the hook for overdue fines thanks to my birthday. In no particular order, Birthday book of Saints, Robert Frost: 16 Poems to Memorize by Heart are due back in the library book return slot within two days.

Even with a few books returned, my library book shelf continues overflows with books. The overflow goes into a sturdy cardboard box formerly used for containers filled with strawberries. This is my life, overflowing with library books, some I will finish, somehow I won’t, some I will return early because I just don’t care. Some I will check out again and again until I’m done, finally.

Twenty-five books is just a fraction of what’s allowed at my local library. I think the maximum allowable is 100 or close to that number. But what a great way to live life. I wouldn’t buy that many books and I don’t other people would buy as much as they might borrow from the library. But there’s something very freeing about a library book that allows you to borrow what you might not want to buy. A library card, in my most humble of opinions, allows you to explore books that you might not buy. It’s a kind of a passport into worlds unknown.

I wouldn’t buy books about correspondence. They tend to be big and unwieldy. But they’re a great read especially in 15-minute gulps. Feeling sad you don’t have a personal letter in your USPS mailbox? Read one from Lucille Ball, Julia Childs. If you’re a writer, you might feel like you need a letter from your editor. Why not read one from one of the legendary bests, Maxwell Perkins, who penned notes to Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Thomas Mann and others? Or Ursula Nordstrom the editor responsible for bringing Good Moon, Charlotte’s Web, Where the Wild Things Are, Harold and the Purple Crayon to libraries everywhere. Read her letters to Margaret Wise Brown, Shel Silverstein, Maurice Sendak and E.B. White as if they were written to you in Dear Genius. Get your ego fed in less than 15 minutes, without opening up your email inbox. Feel paper, imbibe on words printed in typefaces not ordinarily found on the Internet. Tiny type, italics, boldface and much much more!

Don’t want to buy a coffee table size books because storage means higher shelves? Borrow books on the Uptown Theater, the Great Lakes or Mid Century Modern furniture. In 15 minutes or less, you can indulge in old photos, ads and old-time glamour. Park it temporarily on your coffee table, read a few pages with a cup of coffee or a cocktail. Return the doorstop of a book when you’re done or not.

Feel like cooking a recipe from a cookbook for once? Borrow a few from the library, scan them and try a recipe or two. The experience of cooking a recipe from a book is so different from one found online. A cookbook refuses to lay flat and you have to stick it in a plastic book holder. It might have stains from previous cooks. It might even have notes in too.

So I say read recklessly. Life is short, pick up as many books as you can carry, as many as your front passenger-seat can hold, the under carriage of your stroller can hold. Borrow, borrow, borrow! Life is underway, don’t let it carry you away without at least one, five, 10, 15, 20, 25, 35, 45 books belonging to tax payers.

Don’t have any books yet? With 15 minutes to spare, you can put a few books (or DVDs as Dan Blank does) on hold for pick up in the drive through Sometimes you can get books on the same day within hours of putting it on hold. It’s happened for me, it can happen for you.

Here’s the public library in Williamsburg, VA. I wasn’t able to borrow a book, but I snapped photos for future borrows here in Milwaukee. Check out that rocking chair, see the packet of seeds I got for free. Inhale the sweet fragrance of wisteria on this pergola.

Life is beautiful, friends, go to the library, pronto. Bring a wagon and let your brain and heart fly away in the balloons of books.

What books have you read without intention and with wild abandon? Let me know in the comments.