Book nerds of the world, unite....

I confess;  I am a book nerd.  A friend of mine recently posted a "BBC 100" list of "must read" books.  Once I tallied my list I had over 40 of them either as books I had actually read or partially read. I have always loved books. There was a time when I kept every book I had ever read;  stacks and piles and shelves and BOXES of books!  A library of paperback and hard cover novels and anthologies, instructional manuals, encyclopedias of gardening and animal care and cooking and crafting.  If I read it and owned it, it stayed with me.

I discovered the public library in Grade 2.  It was a mile walk (yeah, uphill, in the freezing snow with no gloves... really...) and I made the trip nearly every Saturday for months.  I would sit and read all the childrens' books, then take some home to read.  I checked out as many as I was allowed, and carried them home to read over and over, basically memorizing the stories.  Once I mastered the children's books I moved onto headier stuff and I read The Hobbit during the summer before I started Grade 3... my older sister thought I was faking it... she didn't think I could read at that level. It set the bar for literature for me from then on.  I devoured folk tales, mysteries, gothic novels (Bram Stoker was a favorite), and I discovered Romance novels as I became a teenager.  

 

In school, although I read voraciously I never worked hard at it, and was usually reading another book before the report for the previous one was written.  I immersed myself in reading, using the story lines traveling into my brain to keep the chaos of home from impacting on me too much.  So I guess I was raised by the books I read.  

 

When I was offered a chance to take an English course in Highschool called "Novels" I jumped at it!  We would turn in a stack of books that had been read, some would be discussed in groups, some had reports, some were class projects... all were excellent.  My teacher kept a tally of books in the class report ledger, and I started  to keep "lists" of all the books I had read.. two or three a week, ...sometimes one every day. 

I kept up with a list of "books I have read" for a long time.  I listed titles, number of pages and dates read.  I filled up a spiral bound notebook, then added loose leaf pages to it, for almost twelve of my adult years until my children were born.  

When the time finally came, though, most of those books I had held onto became just another stack of stuff that weighed me down and kept me from moving forward.  I realized that I had to streamline my life a bit more, and books was only one of the hoards that was ruthlessly (I thought) pared down to make room for other "stuff".  It was really nothing compared to the final "Purge of 2009" when I truly reduced the room full to only a few piles of books that I knew I could - and have - enjoyed over and over.  My "summer reading" pile, my "evenings before sleep" pile, my "making my life better" pile, and my "favorite children's stories" pile... the most precious pile of all.

My most treasured possessions (well, as "stuff" goes") are those books from my childhood.  I have a stack of old leather bound story books in my private collection, tucked into a tall bookshelf in the corner of my bedroom where they are not for public display.  In them are  stories from long ago;  "Little Black Sambo", "The Crow and the Daylight" and "The Sparrow-King's Rewards" to name a few.  They were new when I was born, and are standing the test of time.  Not all my books are so well preserved.  I have a collection of small Victor Hugo novels, bound in blue cloth and stamped with gold.  They are too fragile to read, but they carry the memory of my Father and I wandering a swap meet together and how he haggled with the seller for them because I wanted them.  It still brings a smile to my face.  There are a few others; favorite authors, favorite novels I re-read from time to time, story books I read to my children and others I hope someday to read to my grandchildren.  They stand together as my remaining book collection, whittled down after the "purge" of 2009!  I only read before sleeping now, mostly ones I have enjoyed in the past.  But I recently wandered through a bookstore, checking each department, paging through texts on design, motorcycles, dogs, food, and gardening, giggling over "self help" titles, looking at what titles I had enjoyed, what authors I was still interested in, and actually managed to leave without purchasing a single book. 

 

There were a few titles I will add to the collection later, but right now my life is full enough, and serene enough, that I don't need to read to quiet the chaos around me or silence the anxiety that keeps me from sleep.  Life is good, and it's going to get much better soon... And I will always have room for a few more books.