Books to Help You Get Moving

If there is one thing I really hate, it's moving. Naturally, I seem to move almost every year.

My most recent move was last month—to Brooklyn with my husband and son, so I could commute to my public library job more easily. After so many moves, you might assume I am an expert, but I admit the stress and difficulty has caught me off guard each time. Until this time. This time, to ease my dread of the task ahead, I decided to hit the books at the library beforehand. Here's a list of some of the fiction and nonfiction that resulted from this process, in case you are planning a move too.

Rules for Moving by Nancy Star was one of the first books I dove into when I was getting ready for this move and remains one of my favorites. I remember wishing this book was longer because I wasn't ready to say goodbye to the characters when the book was over. Lane Meckler is an advice columnist whose life comes undone when her husband suddenly dies in a freak car accident...along with the woman with whom he's been cheating. Unfortunately, everyone in their apartment building loved her late husband (and thinks she's awful). Meanwhile, she also has a precocious son named Henry who stops speaking to everyone, except her, after his father's death. So she decides to do what comes most naturally to her: move (it's something that her parents did a lot when she was growing up). But as she moves, not surprisingly, her problems move with her and she is forced to examine her life. 

Friends and Strangers by J Courtney Sullivan - Moving is a huge transition in life. Elisabeth is a new mom when she moves from Brooklyn to Upstate New York and has to adjust to not only the change of scenery but also new mom life (without the village of moms and nannies she left in Brooklyn). This book shows how much can change in a single year—something I know will awe me when June 2023 rolls around and I realize I've been living in Brooklyn for a year. This is a great book to read and examine your own thoughts about how much your life will change with a move. 

On Moving: A Writer's Meditation on New Homes, Old Haunts, and Finding Home Again by Louise A. DeSalvo is a collection of essays that dives into DeSalvo's favorite writer's thoughts on the joy, excitement, heartache, pain, memories, fears, disappointments that comes with the process of moving. This is a great book to settle into as you begin your packing. 

This is Where You Belong: The Art and Science of Loving the Place You Live by Melody Warnick - The average American moves 11.7 times in their lifetime (I've more than covered that in my 37 years of life!), so Melody Warnick decides to dig into the question of how does the place we live become the place we stay? 

I also made a list of even more books to read if you have time between packing, moving, and unpacking, so check it out. And good luck with your move! May it be as easy as a move can be! And in case this message didn’t find you in time to help with your move, don’t worry about your lack of progress. We’ve now been moved in for about a month and this is still the state of our apartment:

Kimberly Behan works as a children's librarian at Adams Street Library. Her motto in life is to never leave home without a book because you never know when you can sneak read a page or two! Kimberly works daily at creating personalized reading lists for your reading interests through Bklyn BookMatch.