I am a book junkie. I have book buying "sources/contacts" all over the place. I have bought books in warehouses, stores, online, from paper book orders, airports, thrift stores...really, if there is a place that offers me a delicious, enticing book, I'll buy it. At one time I was a card carrying member to 3 different libraries. I know where all the libraries are within a 60 mile range of my house. I personally know my local librarians. I have been known to wander over to the library in the middle of the day (ALL BY MYSELF) and hang out with my favorite librarians for a little while...always in the children's section. I'm sure they have adult books but who needs that kind of baggage in their life? The children's librarians know my children. I love that. Shouldn't every child have a personal relationship with their local children's librarian? I think it should be a mandatory community relationship! (Although I did get rear ended by a gentleman the other day who got out of his car and admitted that he didn't see me because he was waving to his garbage man that was in the lane next to him! I seriously had no comment to that.) Anyway, I love books.
Maybe I should be more specific...I love children's books. I have read more than my share of adult literature and I've sworn it off. If I try to pick up a fiction book written for adults then I am guaranteed one or more of the following:
1. an affair
2. sex abuse
3. domestic or child abuse
4. mental illness
5. tragic death
6. People whose lives have been seriously messed up by a combination of #1-5.
7. Too much sex and drinking
8. A disease that I have never heard of but will spend the next month wondering if I have.
9. Cancer
10. Mean Parents
You get the point...
I'm not saying you don't get these themes to one degree or another in a children's book, but you don't get it thrown in your face the way you do in adult fiction. And in so much nitty, gritty detail. Adult fiction doesn't usually make me feel happy. It can be a real downer...
I have also discovered there is an unspoken hierarchy in my life for the books I'm reading and how I feel about them. I have a red basket on the floor next to my bed. This basket contains all the books I'm hoarding and waiting to read. It is a basket of anticipation and hope. When my red basket is getting low, I get bummed. When it is filled to overflowing, then I feel happy! I try and never let my basket of anticipation get low. Just for fun, I currently have the following books in my red book basket:
a) The Legend of Bass Reeves (by Gary Paulsen)
b) I, Coriander (by Sally Gardner)
c) Matched (by Ally Condie)
d) Get a Clue: Operation Golden Scepter (by Julian Press)
e) Hands-On Physical Science Projects (my daughter is obsessed with science projects right now)
f) Freeing Your Child From Anxiety (by Tamar E. Chansky)
Once a book is chosen from the basket, it rests on my blue desk next to my bed. If the book is wonderful, there it will stay until it's completion. (Right now it is a delightful book called "One Crazy Summer" by Rita Williams-Garcia...Newbery Honoree book.) Unfortunately, if the book is not holding my interest, it gets moved to the car. On the front seat of my car sit the books that didn't reach out and grab me but I'm not ready to give up on yet. I read these in my down waiting periods...red lights, picking kids up from school/scouts/band/gymnastics/science club, sitting in the Chick-Fil-A drive thru, etc.
And in the bathroom lies the low of the low...the potty basket. These are books that only get read if someone has to go to the bathroom really bad and is desperate for reading material. I don't want to be mean to the book so this is its last stop before the "thrift" store. One more chance for someone else to wander in and "discover" the book. Right now I have a book called "The 100 Thing Challenge"...but today it will make its way out my door. I've had enough of it.
The thrift box is purgatory...book hell. Not many books make it to this outer darkness but occasionally...just occasionally...
And now I must go address the other issues in my life. What a random post.
8 comments:
I thought I was bad....you actually read at stop lights? I do relate, I have always had a reading addiction and have been known to read milk cartons and cereal boxes if there is nothing else available. You need to get the Uncle John's Bathroom Reader calendar for your potty room. Some lovely person sent it to us for Christmas and it is perfect for quick stops! Thanks! I agree with you on adult reading--it is hard to find, so thanks to you I have had some really good YA fiction lately. Love, love, loved Chains and Forge and have passed them on to our temple missionaries to enjoy. I have read three and a half books during our shutdown--dad keeps saying, "Aren't you bored?" I just answer, "Are you crazy? I'm in heaven!" I'm so glad you inherited that particular trait and love that it is being passed on to the next generation, too! READ ON!!!
I am right there with you on the adult fiction. I just don't really want to add that list to my life. I've started to read more and more memoirs and creative non fiction. If I do read a fiction book (that is not young adult or children) it is almost always Christian fiction. Not necessarily LDS fiction that I most often find contrived but Christian fiction like Lynn Austin.
I'm a book junkie too. I just love reading and going to the library. My grandma was a librarian when I was growing up and I spent a lot of my childhood among the shelves of books.
This post is so "Amy"! And no, it is not random at all. I love it!
Why aren't my comments posting??
NOW they work.. when I don't write a real one! What I wanted to say.. or ask rahter.. is why don't I LOVE books?? Huh?? This is exactly what I was talking about!! Where is my thirst for knowledge?? I love to write.. why not READ?? Why, Amy.. why?? It's cool you do love it so.
All I know is that I would be lost without your Goodreads list. I wouldn't be able to add a gagillion more books to my "to read" list without you!!! I just wish our little library could keep up with the new releases sometimes-- we do our best:)
I totally agree. Narratives are what I love. The stories. In too many books written for adults the underlying themes is stronger than the story itself and it weakens its message to me. I love a good book I can zip through and it leaves me thinking about the story and characters. Then I can absorb themes and mull over meaning on my own afterwards without it depressing me while reading.
That is really hilarious. I share the same kind of book hierarchy in my house. The books in my car, I have been reading for about a year now. And the stack on my nightstand is moving very slowly because I just keep adding to it.
I like books. Books are fun. But I agree with you that most adult literature is a bummer.
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