Chronic Bibliophile

My mother taught me to read long before I entered school. This besides food, shelter and clothing was the best gift she could have provided. I am so thankful that she instilled in me, the love for the art form of literature. If I wasn't climbing trees, coloring or mastering dance moves from music videos, I could certainly be found with a book. My favorites were Paddington Bear, Corduroy, Dr. Seuss, Babar the Elephant, Harold and the Purple Crayon, Amelia Bedelia…the list goes ON AND ON. My level of reading was always on a higher level than my peers. I’m not tooting my own horn here but it was that way because I really loved reading just as one would excel in basketball if they really loved it and practiced a lot. I’ve read a lot of YA (Young Adult) books in my adulthood because I missed them as a young adult. It seems I went from children’s books right to adult books. There wasn’t any real transition and I think school is to blame.

In school, we were required to read what was listed on the curriculum for each grade. I don’t like being forced to do anything so I discovered cliff notes and spent my “homework time” reading what I wanted. I only slightly regret this. I missed out on The Diary of Anne Frank as an adolescent because of my defiance. I read this book only about 2 years ago and it would have done me very well to have read it as a teenager. I’m now playing catch up when talking about literature with people because I never read what everyone else did in school. I used to think I was just lazy about things that didn’t interest me, or just naturally difficult but then I learned about the ADHD and soon after about Bibliophilia (also a very real disorder).

In my collection, which I consider to be very small and insignificant, I’ve got over 400 books. I’d say about 30% of these books I’ve never read. Of that 30% I don’t intend to read 5% of them. Why? I can’t really say why. Sometimes I go to thrift stores, estate sales, yard sales and used bookstores and I see a book that seems interesting, interesting being very antique or on some off subject you wouldn’t normally find a book about; I’ll get it. If I’ve got money and you’ve got books, I will spend money on said books. I know I’ll never read it but it feels so special to me to have it in my collection. I cannot further explain what seems inexplicable. Right now I’ve got about 4 books on my shelves that were written in the early 1900s. The one fact about them makes them special.

I’m particularly a fan of independent authors and authors “no one’s ever heard of.” I feel like I’m in a solo book club when I discover a new author whose name can’t be found on the bestsellers list. The book into a movie craze has gotten out of hand as far as I’m concerned but no one cares what I think, obviously; money is the motive. I sometimes enjoy movies that come from books but I find that a movie comes out without me ever having known that a book was involved. This is disturbing because if a book-lover doesn’t know, there’s millions of other clueless people. I become uninterested in a book once I already know the story and I wonder if this applies to other people as well. I’ve got a compilation of the works of Jane Austen and also separate books and I’ve not read any of it because I know the story line already. I can’t waste time reading these when there are many more interesting books I’m ignorant of. I figure I’ll save those for when I either have read all I have or some other tragic event occurs that prevents me from acquiring more books.

As far as e-books, I’m not a big fan. They are cheaper sometimes but I’d just rather hold a book with pages in my hand to read. I sometimes sit in the middle of my bookshelves and just admire them. You could say I’m unstable but as far as books are concerned, I wouldn’t be insulted at all. Now here’s the part where I need full participation from the few readers I do have: WHAT ARE SOME OF YOUR FAVORITE BOOKS AND AUTHORS? 

“When I get a little money I buy books. If there is any left over I buy food and clothes” - Erasmus