A Cup of Tea with Nancy, Who Reads a Book Every Day

A longtime friend of the library had a lead for us. "My neighbor," she wrote us, "is a 93-year-old who reads a book every single day thanks to Hennepin County Library (HCL) At Home Service. Are you interested in meeting her?" YES, I quickly responded and arranged to meet with prolific reader Nancy in her home.  

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—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—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 1890s. Am I really working right now? I ask myself as I sip the warm herbal blend.

I'm here, simply, to talk about Nancy's reading life, and she dives in without even needing me to ask a question. When Nancy was a child, she tells me, she fell in love with reading. The local newspaper would mail subscribers a special edition of a classic book each year, and a young Nancy devoured the collection in her family's New York City apartment. Early in life, her sister fell ill with polio, and even after recovering she required a lot of care and attention from their mother. Often finding herself alone, Nancy dove into the series "My Book House" for entertainment. The detailed illustrations captured so many emotions and unlocked her imagination. "That series was one of the reasons I got hooked on books, because it was so fascinating to me. I was very fortunate to have these types of reading influences," she tells me.

During her school years, Nancy discovered she not only loved to read, but she was especially skilled at it too. The student body participated in a reading study, and when Nancy's scores in speed and comprehension soared above those of her peers, the researchers observed that she was naturally performing block reading. When reading, she sees and comprehends an entire block of words, rather than scanning one word at a time from left to right, which allows her to pore over books with extraordinary speed and volume. Due to this difference, she's a whiz at word searches. She once found an error in a word search and contacted the editor, who, amused, sent her two copies of the corrected edition.

As Nancy stirs sugar into her tea, I ask about her first library experience. She considers this. "My first library was in Queens, New York where I grew up. There was a lending library on the way to my house—just three blocks away—that I'd pass as I got off the subway. For a quarter, which was a lot of money then, you could get a book, and I used to get a lot of books. The librarian was a nice lady. She saw the books that I was getting and how costly it was—that was where I'd spend all my allowance! The librarian was so taken with me, she wanted me to meet her son. I was in high school then, and he called me. He was a tall, red-headed, freckled guy, and he took me on my first date. That was the first time I had an ice cream soda. It was a nice first date!" 

At each chapter of her life, books played a starring role in Nancy's days. After graduating with an English degree from Skidmore College, Nancy scored a job as a junior editor for J. B. Lippincott & Co. Publishing in Philadelphia and was tickled by her new job perk of taking home free, damaged copies of books from the back room to read in addition to her long list of daily reading assignments.

As a young wife and mother to three sons, she found herself moving across the country frequently for her husband's work in engineering. Through many new cities, and many evenings alone while her husband was traveling, books kept Nancy company. She explored her childhood dream of becoming an archeologist through reading nonfiction on history, science and anthropology. 

Upon finally settling down in Minnesota after her husband's retirement, Nancy built new community through books. Many of the people she met in Minnesota invited her to book clubs because to know Nancy is to know she likes to read. "It was a wonderful way to meet people, because you had people in your homes, and everyone took a turn," she recalls. From candlelit poetry readings on stormy evenings after power outages to picking local authors' brains during intimate book club lunches, literary memories are at the heart of her past decades.

The passion Nancy has for the writer's mind spills out of her. "You get so knocked out when you come across someone whose descriptive powers are just beyond.... When they're describing an ordinary scene in such extraordinary ways," she gushes. "I like to know what makes them write, why do they pick the topics that they do, how do they write? Each one has a different reason, a different way."

"What's your favorite kind of book to read?" I ask. "Oh, I like everything. Thrillers and mysteries for fiction. I don't always remember the authors, or the titles of the books. I read so much that I sometimes forget, but there are books that do stick in your mind, like Louise Erdrich books. I always keep lists." To these lists, she adds works by authors she likes and books that pique her interest from reading the various review magazines she subscribes to (Harpers, The Atlantic, The New York Review of Books, New England Review and HCL At Home Reader to name a few). 

Once she has narrowed down her next reads, she fills out an HCL request slip that she mails back to the library with her book returns. She motions to the oversized navy envelopes that lean against a wall. "I was so embarrassed because I got an email telling me I had some books that I had to return, and at the bottom it also said, 'if you have some extra of those envelopes, could you send them back?' I sent five or six of them back, but I still have three or four," she admits. She chuckles, "but hey, the postman told me he likes the exercise he gets carrying all my books up and down the stairs!"

By the time I break free of my bibliophilic trance and look at my watch, it's been two hours. I gather my notebook and purse, and Nancy and I stand in her living room commenting on the winter scene I will soon venture into. In that heavy, Minnesota goodbye air, it seems there is still something she has yet to say. Tenderly, she grasps my arm, smiling at me. "I don't know how I would survive without the library. I really appreciate the At Home Service. I can't get to the library as fast, or as much as I'd like to. That breaks my heart. It's a vital part of my life, as you can see," she says, eyeing her stacks of books.

We say goodbye, and as I drive home, I think about how over a lifetime, books have been a constant companion to Nancy. From a child entertaining herself, to an adult living in a new state without any extended family and with an ever-traveling partner, to a homebound reader no longer mobile to go see the place and people she'd like to visit, Nancy has leaned on stories for enrichment and support. Books have filled a space, providing rich friendship in times of isolation. I remember her words as we sat across her dining table: "I heard a few years ago that Hennepin County Library is considered one of the greatest libraries in the country, and I believe it, because of what they do for people who couldn't go out to the library. It draws you into a different world to be able to read, and you need that if you're home a lot." For the more than 900 readers like Nancy supported by At Home Service each year, I am endlessly grateful to the library for providing new worlds for them to visit from the comfort of their homes.

—Lizzie Esposito, Marketing & Communications Associate