As I stated in the title, I'm not an emotional person. We (my wife, our 7yo son 3yo daughter, and myself) lost our house to a fire last May. My collection was just over 1100 books, and I truly loved every single one of them. I went through every identifiable item in the house with the inventory specialist our insurance company sent, because I don't really have an emotional attachment to any of the "things," whereas my wife sobbed at even the thought of seeing it. Fast forward to Christmas. Behind the boxes of Legos for our son, and the princess gear for our daughter, were stack after stack of books, lovingly picked by my beautiful wife. Stephen Ambrose, Aldous Huxley, Ken Follett, William Golding... 35 books in all. Hard to explain to her why I couldn't muster a single tear in the hospital when our daughter was born, yet couldn't stop the biblical torrent streaming down my 38yo cheeks because of a few King novels.

Update: Thank you all so much for the responses! I didn't expect this much outpouring of support and well-wishes, and don't really know how to process it. It feels wrong to, for lack of a better way of putting it, mourn the loss of "things." We were out when the fire happened, so no one was hurt (our two cats were home but came out of it unscathed), and grieving over possessions leaves me with an overwhelming feeling of guilt. I guess that's what led to my post in the first place. Having an emotional response to this beautiful gift has left me feeling more things than I know how to process, and writing about it has, surprisingly, helped.

Thank you all again.

Update 2: Holy cow! This community is incredible! I have received so many offers to send books, that I can't keep up with them all. I would humbly accept any and all books that anyone would like to send. I would like to apologize if I didn't respond to you directly. I appreciate each and every one of you. Our address is P.O.Box 6865 Spokane, WA 99217. Thank you all again!