In late March, a few days after my mother died from cancer, I sat in a cold living room in the north of England with my two sisters as a lawyer read my mother’s last will and testament.

We were told that her modest estate would be divided evenly among her three children, with one exception. “Her collection of over 3,000 print books would go to her oldest daughter, Leanne,” the lawyer said.

via In a Mother’s Library, Bound in Spirit and in Print – NYTimes.com.