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‘Cat in the Stacks: A Reminder to Love

CAT-STAX4I’m William Repetto, a first-year graduate student at Villanova University. This is the “‘Cat in the Stacks” column. I’m your ‘cat. I’ll be posting about college life, about learning and growing here at Villanova, and, of course, about the Falvey Library’s role.


Love has been an important topic in the world in recent months. This week, while we celebrate Valentine’s Day, reflecting on some of the different types of love might do us – writer included ­­­– some good. Of course there are those with a silly mind, like those over at the digital collection responsible for the tweet below, but we’re talking about ‘love’ here and not ‘love making.’

First and foremost, with Valentine’s Day directly in our rearview mirror, romantic love can take center stage. I know that for some, romance and dating isn’t exactly your scene. As our Valentine’s Day listicle shows, however, romance and love in art and literature serve to sweep us off our feet from the daily tedium. One need not be a romantic himself or herself to experience the pleasure of reading Pride and Prejudice or any of the books our librarians recommended.

Next, in the wake of Brit Bennett’s visit to the Falvey yesterday, let’s talk about love of self and love of community. Bennett’s The Mothers, on some levels, talks about how one can recover the love of self after keeping a dark secret. While maybe not the exact message of Bennett’s book, my message for you is this: no matter how you feel that you let yourself down, remember to recover that love of self that helps you move forward.

Lit Fest and The Mothers

The Mothers also deals with a community of churchgoing mothers back in the protagontist’s hometown. While their gossip and talk might seem counter to Nadia’s (the protagonist’s) lifestyle, Nadia (like Bennett herself has said in interviews) retained a love for her hometown that transcended the seeming pettiness of a few of its members.

Having a place you call home is an important foundation toward building a successful career, successful relationships and a successful lifestyle. That place that you call home is generally populated with people who love you, and people who want to see you succeed themselves.

I hope for some of you that this description reminds of Villanova, and more specifically the Falvey Memorial Library. Think about it, the Falvey fits the criteria of home: we want to help lay the foundation for your success and the building is filled with those who want nothing more than to help in the fruition of your education. In this week of celebrating love, we want you to remember that you always have a place in our hearts here at the Falvey.

Falvey Entrance

In the recent months, love has become more than an emotion; it has become a political concept. As we continue our odyssey through the semester, however, let us Wildcats remember that love is at the heart of all that we do. Love of home, love of self, love of topic (e.g. history, engineering, mathematics, etc), and love of community drive everything we do.

As your campus library, we’re proud to say that the entire Villanova community is our Valentine, and we’ll be sending you all the love possible as we continue through the semester.


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Article by William Repetto, a graduate assistant on the Communications and Marketing Team at the Falvey Memorial Library. He is currently pursuing an MA in English at Villanova University.


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Last Modified: February 15, 2017

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