My love affair with books

This is a picture of the books I've read since New Years Day. That's 9 books in 3 months, and that's because I've also got grad school and a job competing for my waking hours. If I had more time, it could be more than this.

Everyone's got a vice. Some people drink, some people smoke, some people have a penchant for one-night-stands. Me, I buy books. Pretty tame I know. I can't stop by a book store and not leave with at least one book, and unfortunately for my wallet it's usually more than one.

Back home in my rented storage unit, where most of my stuff is taking up residence until I can finally settle down somewhere for a while with a job after grad school, I have 10+ file boxes of books. Because not only do I read books, I keep them. I have a dream of a house that has one room that's walls are lined with bookshelves... a lovely little home within a home for my books.

I've been hooked since before my very first Babysitter's Club books. In elementary school Pizza Hut teamed up with schools for kids to set goals on how many books they would read each month. If you met your goal, you got a free personal pan pizza! My teachers would laugh when I said I'd read 8+ books a month, but never once did I not meet it (over-achiever characteristics presenting themselves at an early age). COME ON! FREE PIZZA!? FOR READING?! Sign me up!!!

When I was younger, and my family would go on summer vacations, we used to go places we could drive to from NJ. This meant somewhere around 9 hours in a car each way plus about a week of downtime. As my parents packed up our Ford Aerostar van (typical "Mom-van" of the '90's and early '00's), my brother and I were each allowed a small box of things to keep us entertained on the trip that would sit between us on the bench seat in the back. My box was filled with my Walkman and eventually my Discman (I'm old, I know), a few coloring books and crayons, colored string to make friendship bracelets, and 9-10 books. Yes, 9-10 books for a week long trip. I probably read my way through most of the young-adult books at the Hunterdon County Library during my childhood. If I was lucky and didn't get car sick during the drive up, I could usually finish a book before we even reached our destination.

For me reading is about losing yourself in another world. It doesn't even have to be a world so different from ours, just that it's not my world - the world I live in every day. I "bond" with the characters, and as I reach the final pages of a book, I'm sad to see them go. The worst is when I finish a series where I've spent months with these characters going through their adventures book after book. When I finish the last book it's like I'm breaking up with them, and it's hard to start a new book for a few days because I'm not quite over the experience I had with my last ones. I've laughed out loud with some books, and in some you'll find tear stains on the pages as I've cried along with the characters. I get caught up in my books, it's my escape.

I'm also a little quirky about my books. If they're part of a series, they all have to be the same: all hardcover or all paperback, if they're paperback, they all have to be the same size. I try to do the same thing by author even if they're not in a series. Sometimes I wait months for the next book in a series until it's available in the format I've got the rest of the series in. It's probably because when they sit on my bookshelves, I organize them alphabetically by author (nerd-alert), and I want them all to look the same. If a book's been made into a movie, I try to find the books with the original cover art and not the ones with the movie poster cover (I also try to read the books before seeing the movie because they're always so much better, and you get more of the back story doing that). And, I will probably never switch to an e-reader of any kind because I like the weight of a book in my hand, I like turning the pages, and I like the way books smell.

Now, I rarely leave home without a book. You never know when you're going to have a few free minutes to get in a few pages here and there. I read in the parking lot if I get somewhere early, I read in the movie theater while I wait for the coming attractions to start. I read on my lunch break, I read before I go to bed.

So in a world of vices, I could do much worse than my obsession with books. Hopefully, when I eventually have kids, I can share this passion with them, and they can be voracious readers as well.

Until next time, I'll be enjoying my life of books, boys, sports and..., and I hope you'll be enjoying whatever it is that makes your life happy.