Did all of you hear me squeal from Indiana yesterday? Three packages came in the mail for me, and I squealed with delight. Wanna take a guess at what they might have been?
Okay. I guess it's kinda hard to play a guessing game on a blog. So I'll just have to tell you.
BOOKS!
Oh my. I looked at each one's cover as I pulled them out of the bubble wrappers, oohing and aahing over the loveliness of them. And I'm pretty sure my husband thinks I'm crazy by now.
I must say I'm starting to get psyched over becoming a book reviewer. I mean, have I mentioned how much I really love books? What? I have? Oh yeah, I guess maybe once or twice or ten times.
Thinking back now, I guess I've loved books for a lot of years. I'm not sure when it started. There were seasons when I didn't do any reading. I was more into trying my hand at various crafts and sewing. But I keep coming back to reading.
I guess my preoccupation can be traced all the way back to childhood. My parents implemented a family reading time at night before bed. My sister and I would crawl up into their bed while Mom or Dad read the Little House on the Prairie series to us. Sometimes I couldn't keep my eyes open and would fall asleep, missing out on whatever was happening in "The Big Woods".
Recently I started recalling how we used to get the book fair catalogs in elementary school. I had forgotten about that. Every time we received a new one I would look and look and look and change my mind about 8 times trying to decide exactly the books or posters I wanted to order. I also remember being a bookmark freak, too. I'm not sure why a bookmark was so thrilling. Anyway, I knew I could only buy one or two items from the catalog, so I had to choose wisely.
I've tried to understand what's going on in my head with such a desire for books. I don't deny that I'm perceived as unusual because my heart starts racing anytime I get within two blocks of my public library, thinking that maybe, just maybe, I need to stop and see if there's a book on the shelves that is on my to-be-read list when in actuality I already have six novels awaiting me at home on my bookcase.
I know it's not about escapism. It's utterly impossible for me to read when I've got problems on my mind, so I know that can't be it. I just don't understand what it is that makes me do this.
Are you book readers? If so, why do you read? Are you obsessed with books like me?
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Obsessed might be putting it lightly for me. I may need to look into counseling for addictions! Ha ha! I heart reading!
ReplyDeleteI also loved those book fair catalogs and fondly remember pouring over them and carefully filling out the little selection slip! I loved those bookmarks with the tassels, too. :)
ReplyDeleteI still love the Laura Ingalls Wilder books. They are beautifully written, and I never get tired of the stories.
I admit that I do enjoy the escapism aspect of reading, which is why I will almost always pick up a novel before the five or six non-fiction books waiting on my nightstand!
When I think of libraries and books, I often remember this passage from A Tree Grows In Brooklyn:
“The library was a little old shabby place. Francie thought it was beautiful. The feeling she had about it was as good as the feeling she had about church. She pushed open the door and went in. She liked the combined smell of worn leather bindings, library paste and freshly-inked stamping pads better than she liked the smell of burning incense at high mass."
Love, love, love books! So thankful for the library, otherwise I'd be thousands of dollars in the hole!
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