A Reader Lives a Thousand Lives

When I was a little girl my Momma never went anywhere without a book. Some mass market paperback version of the new Stephen King, or Dean Koontz was always tucked in her purse. She bestowed a love of reading on to me at such an early age.

I poured through books as an elementary school kid. I even won a contest in 1^st grade for reading 100 books in one school year! As I became a teenager, when the phone and eventually “hanging out” took over my life, while I would pick up a book now and then, I rarely read past the requirements of my English classes. In college it was even worse. Who the hell has time to read for pleasure in college?!?! When you show up on the first day, listen to lecture, and in your first class are assigned 9 chapters……before TOMORROW? Yeah, no escaping into a love story tonight! (This implies that I always read the material for my class the next day. Sometimes I would – if something better didn’t come along. I mean when your neighbor is having a get-together, you can’t not show, can you?)

After college I would read books every now and then. But I got out of college and had a baby. Ya know, there should be a billboard in front of every high school about babies: Sleep too much? Too much time on your hands? Think about yourself too much? Desire financial responsibility for the rest of your life? Too much time NOT cleaning up bodily fluids? HAVE A BABY! As the kids got older, and would ACTUALLY go to bed at a decent hour, I did read progressively more, but I’ve always been a busybody and have always had too many irons in the fire. For me time has always been like alcohol to an alcoholic, as soon as I have a little bit, I promptly consume it.

When I started the work I’m doing now, all time for books went out the window. I found myself working increasingly more hours and, when I would have time for a book, I was reading contracts, or books on negotiation techniques. I obsess. And, when I find something to obsess over, I go all in. There’s no obsession I work at half ass. If I’ve decided it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing RIGHT.

Now, as I am older, and my kids prefer video games and smart phones to my presence, I find myself with a little more time. Or at least I am attempting to make a little more time in my life. It has become clear to me that the life of obsession, over only one thing, is unsustainable. And so I’m diversifying my obsessions.

Lucky for me, Mikey shares many of these traits. And our obsessions are very similar in so many ways. We recently sat down before the end of the year and brainstormed a list of things we’d like to do in the upcoming year. Over half or more of the things on my list and his matched. One of them was “Read more books.”

In the last six months or so, we find ourselves particularly enjoying spending hours at the thrift store searching through books. For us, owning books seems something akin to collecting antiques. Eventually we figure a book, written on paper, and bound in such an artistic way, will be a thing of the past. And we just aren’t ready to let go of that past. Whether they ever are worth anything? I don’t know, and frankly I don’t care. I love a good book collection – always have. And so we are building ours.

The thing is though, we love books so much, and are interested in so much, that there are times we walk out of there with 2 paper bags full of books. Since we’ve done this a few times now, we talked about limiting ourselves to a weekly trip, with a preset amount to spend: $13.05. That is the price of 5 books (if they are on the high end of the pricing scale). We decided that we will shop as usual and if the combination of the books in our hands at the end of our trip is greater than 5, we will have to start bargaining over which ones to put back. (Fortunate for me that I negotiate for a living – however he’s pretty. damn. good.)

Yesterday, after we hit the gym, we wandered over to see what we could find. Funny, when you’ve bought a hundred books in the last month you’d think there’s nothing left to want to buy. WRONG! We left a couple on the shelf (with no real bickering) and brought 5 home.

And I can’t wait to go back! It could be worse...at least this latest obsession is fairly inexpensive. And we're making reading time a priority - I've already read 3 books in the last 2 weeks!

Somewhat Innocuous Sources of Real Messages

Lilly has been begging to watch The Help for over a month. I read the book last year and couldn't put it down. It was poignantly written and brought both smiles and tears. Any book that can make me laugh out loud I consider a winner. Kudos to you, Kathryn Stockett.

Tonight I finally rented it. It's Black History Month right? Maybe I should've watched it before I let my daughter, but I had heard from multiple trusted sources that it would be ok for her. Turns out it was. The movie was well done and seemingly portrayed life at that time in Jackson, Mississippi as accurately as it could have. She had many questions. She laughed. She cried. Now I want her to read the book.

Now, she has learned a lot from school about the Civil Rights Movement and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. She knew that African Americans in our country had suffered horrific inequities. But somehow I think that a movie like this, a story where she can associate with characters, could potentially leave even more impact than all the school lectures. It's funny how two hours of your life watching a movie could get such important information ingrained your head forever.

She is horrified about the way many of the white women in the film treated their maids. She was indignant that there was a time in our history where these stories actually existed. She told me, "Mommy, I don't believe that it is ever ok to treat people differently. You should not be judged by the color of your skin."

Dr. King, your message has been received. It may not have been in the format you originally imagined, but it has happened nonetheless. You would be proud. And so am I.

It was the best of books, it was the worst of books...

I love to read. And I read a lot. Every night before I can fall asleep I get at least a page in (usually many, many more which is contributing to my ongoing sleep deprivation). I'm not a discriminating reader either. I read mysteries, love stories, humor, young adult fiction, non-fiction biographies, classics; I will read anything that looks remotely interesting and sometimes some books that didn't captivate me at first. I will admit, I am picky about the style of the book. No, not the picture on the cover (although I do find myself aesthetically intrigued by certain covers) but rather the actual size and style of the book, specifically trade paperbacks. My husband thinks I'm a snob because I don't like the mass-market paperback style you find Fabio gracing the cover of. I just hate the way they feel in my hands. I don't like the way the pages feel. I don't like the way the edges of the pages turn yellow. It's just a preference, snobby or not.

Sometimes I find peculiar books at the thrift store that aren't so pretty, I've never heard of before and really don't have THAT great of a story summary printed on the back and they turn out to be great. I love that. It's like finding a pearl in the middle of hundreds of clam shells. That's where I found this little gem:

This is my favorite book of all time by my all time favorite author of all time.

What I don't love is when critics and celebrity talk-show hosts tout some book that has received numerous awards and acclaim and then it sucks. OK, maybe sucks is too harsh. I mean the author wrote this book (I haven't written a book) and some people smarter and more qualified than me have deemed it amazing. But I can't get into it. It not only fails to capture my attention, it diminishes my enjoyment of one of the only times I get to relax during the day. Ultimately, it lets me down in ways I can't quite verbalize.

For Christmas Brandon got me one of those books. He did everything right in picking it out: right style (trade paperback), good reviews, very popular - a book I would've picked out myself. But for some reason I just can't get into The Tiger's Wife. Now, I'm not a quitter. And so I will persevere and hope for the best. I have read countless books that I have closed the final page and thought to myself, "Really?" (see The House of Sand and Fog - thanks ALOT Oprah) I'm hoping this one will turn itself around. However, I will tell you that coming off of reading the The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo series (I read 95 pages one night) it has HUGE shoes to fill and I just can't see it redeeming itself.

Does anyone else toil about their reading material like this? Anyone have suggestions for books they just couldn't put down? I'd LOVE to hear them!