A longtime friend of the library had a lead for us. Are you interested in meeting her? Nancy Strauss is a colorful woman. When she opens her door, I feel a bit like what the camerawoman must feel upon entering a home for one of those Architectural Digest videos. The scene is almost too much to take in. First, I notice Nancy. In my mind, she's a tall woman, taller than I, though she'll later tell me she's shrunk four inches and hardly feels so.
Perhaps it's the dark red lipstick and the multi-patterned blouse. Perhaps it's the grand backdrop: floorboards to high ceilings covered with pieces of eclectic art, family photos, glass vases, and souvenirs from around the world. To my friends who say they can't do much with their generic apartments, I raise you Nancy's condo in response.
Her place is a cultural oasis, every detail a statement, and I scoff at myself for expecting it to be any different. I am here to meet a person who has read more books this year than I have in my entire adult life. How much cooler can you get? Nancy takes my coat and guides me past her study, complete with large bookshelves and a table β or what I assume to be a table. I can't be sure because it is completely covered by library books, piled three layers high.
I take a seat at her dining room table and observe the space as Nancy makes us a cup of tea. It's a snowy early winter day in Minnetonka, and her large window overlooks a pond and paved trail through neighboring woods, a peaceful scene.
Next to the window, Nancy's reading chair, book and footrest await her, positioned next to a cozy fireplace. I could get used to this place, I think, as she sets a plate of cookies on the table. It's easy to get Nancy talking about her love of books. Her voracious reading habits are reflected in her storytelling style β through a common thread of a lifetime of reading she introduces various characters and subplots, weaving details about the Dutch settlers of Elmhurst, New York with facts about peripatetic women's scholarship groups dating back to the s.
