Every family has a reference shelf. On ours you'll find the phone book, the almanacs for 1997 and 2001 (the years the girls were born--a family tradition on John's side), a thesaurus, a dictionary, some foreign language dictionaries, two different versions of the Bible (I need to look up the odd reference now and again), an atlas, and the AA Big Book.
It's also where we keep our family health references. Here are five books that every home should have on its reference shelf, plus one that should be in the kitchen:
