Talk Books To Me

Just thinking about books gets me all excited. When was the last time you heard someone say that?

But it is the honest-to-gosh truth. I love reading more than just about anything else in the world. Writing my own stories? Well, let's say neck-and-neck, all right?

Writing about horror on my horror blog, What Evil Lurks In Men's Hearts I could not help but get thrilled anew by the memories of some of the great horror fiction I've read throughout my life. It made me want to rummage through my 20,000 + titles and find Something Wicked This Way Comes. Or that old yellow-bound hard cover of the complete H. G. Wells collection (how do you think I got these muscles? It was carrying around that humongous book as a teen).

And it reminded me just how precious books have always been to me. When I collected them by the dozens as a kid in elementary school through the Scholastic book service for school kids. The teacher would hand out those slips and I'd check darn near every book. Bless her heart Mom never made an objection - even when we were poor as the proverbial church mice because dear old Dad had run off with his favorite librarian mistress of the month ... but I digress.

I'd drag home bags and bags of SBS books. I read them again and again and I can still remember my favorites. About Helen Keller, scientists, boys from other planets, a girl who befriends the bad boy, Harriet Tubman, The Red Badge of Courage and umpteen books about girls and their horses.

Those questions that ask, "if you were stranded on a desert island, what book would you want with you?" Crap, they throw me into such a state because there's no way in hell I could pick one. Sure, OK, the complete Shakespeare. And my favorite novel of all time is Possession by A. S. Byatt. But then again ...

No. I'll stop there, as it is hopeless.

When I read one book, it invariably reminds me (for whatever reason) of another book I want to read, or re-read (I do that a lot, too, and given the number of titles in my personal library, I should not be re-reading anything if I expect to get through them all before Death knocks). I have a huge collection of biographies and histories of British monarchs. But start with one, and I realize I should have started with the prior monarch (how else can one get a grasp of the latter monarch's tiem?). Same thing with civil war histories. Can't start with Antietam - what battl came before? Ditto World War II. I once tried to start but realized that WWI led into WWII. But other events led to WWI, and so on and so forth and before you know it I was reading about Boudica and the Romans.

But the fact that I'd rather spend time with a good book that a human?

I think that about sums it up.

Welcome to a bibliomaniac's world. At least it's quiet ....

I Never Met A Book I Didn't Like

I'm a librarian's daughter. I blame that for my obsession with all thinks bookish. Of course, it probably has little to do with that. But for whatever reason, I am a book fiend. I once bought a humorous book that outlined all the symptoms of being a bibliomaniac. Getting rid of furniture in order to fit more books into one's home (except, of course, for the comfy reading chair). Lying to one's family about having been at the bookstore - claiming in fact to have been, for example, at a bar rather than Barnes & Noble. In fact, sneaking the books into the house not in the tell-tale green bags, but in a Victoria's Secret bag.

Well, I'm the poster girl for insane book buying. Just ask my credit card companies. They just LOVE me. And the sudden downturn in the publishing industry? Probably because I've maxxed out the old plastic.

That, and the house is bursting at the seams with books. How many, you ask? Oh, well, roughly, maybe .... 20,000? So, what, is that a lot?

There are LIBRARIES with fewer books.

But come on. I don't splurge on clothes (no wisecracks from the fashion conscious - I've got a better vocabulary than you do and I'm not afraid to use it) - I don't have one of those costly hobbies like a man in my life (or a teenager...don't get me started). I don't travel, or dine out, and Imelda would simply sob over the pitiful state of my shoe collection (sneakers? check. Winter boots? check. 1 pair of worn out flats because my arches have falled from carrying around bags of books, CHECK.)

Instead I buy books. I collect books. I would die rather than pick through the trash for a piece of furniture, but spy a pile of moldering books, I'M SO THERE!

Any subject. Any author. Any condition. I'm not picky. I love them all.

Other people get hit on by drug dealers? I get hit on by the guy hawking books....

Can't you see it? He sidles over, that twitchy face, those beady eyes darting back and forth in search of a copper - He gives me that little grin, leans closer, pulls open the jack and says in that rusty hissing voice...

"Hey, lady, wanna buy a book?"

Anyway, join me as I indulge my vice. As I talk about the books I've bought, want to buy, the ones I've started reading, finished reading, forgot I was reading and the ones I have never forgotten (and a few I have).