36, Day 77 (Written Monday February 27) ~ I know what I’m about to say is absurd, ridiculous, impossible and completely in the realm of make believe, but it is the truth. I wish that I could have another life to live in which all I did was read books. My reason for this fantasy is because I will never live long enough to read all of the books that I want to read. I love to read. I am actually writing this blog while sitting in a bookstore. Usually when I write this blog I am in a library. There is something peaceful and calming to me about books. I hate ebooks. I own an iPad but refuse to buy books on my iPad. I prefer the old fashioned, hold it in my hands, turn each page, use an old receipt for a bookmark style of reading. Whenever we travel to a new city, I always seek out the used bookstores. Some of my greatest discoveries have come amongst piles or boxes of musty, dusty, old, used books. I could, and when my family is not with me, do, spend hours in used bookstores. My family says that I’m a nerd and I guess that’s true. I would rather read than watch tv. Problem is, I don’t have a lot of time to read, and when I do have the time, I usually am very tired and just fall asleep.
I have a number of books that I consider my favorite, but like my children, I can’t say that I love one more than the other. I haven’t always liked reading, in fact, in school, I hated it. It wasn’t that I hated reading, it was just that I hated reading what someone else told me I had to read. My taste in books is as random as a ricochet. My attitude toward books really changed when I was a freshman in high school, and after being forced to read something by Nathaniel Hawthorne, or some other dreary “classic”, I found lying in the English hallway, a worn, frayed copy of Ernest Hemmingway’s The Old Man And The Sea. I know it sound goofy and dramatic, but in all seriousness, it was calling to me. I noticed it, picked it up, and felt like I just had to read it. It was pretty short and I loved the Caribbean thanks to Jimmy Buffett, so I went home and started reading. I devoured the book in one evening and I loved it. I had never loved reading before, but I loved this book, so I read it again. I’ve read it virtually every year of my life since. I still have it and keep it among the very few books that I treasure. This list contains a few others like Herman Wouk’s Don’t Stop The Carnival which tells the story of Norman Paperman, a man bored with his life, who cashes in his chips and buys the hotel he stayed in on vacation on the fictitious island of Amerigo. Somewhere along the way Jimmy Buffett’s Tales From Margaritaville made the list. Many others have made appearances on my “favorites list” through the years: Queen Of The Damned (Anne Rice), Fight Club (Chuck Palahniuk), Less Than Zero (Brett Easton Ellis), Where Is Joe Merchant? (Jimmy Buffett), Replay (Ken Grimwood), Ender’s Game (Orson Scott Card), The Godfather Trilogy (Mario Puzzo), The Road (Carmac McCarthy) and several more I can’t recall off the top of my head. These books are classics, transgressive fiction, sci-fi, historical fiction and pretty much all genres. In high school there were a few I had to read which I wound up loving: Romeo & Juliet, Julius Caesar, Dracula, A Raisin In The Sun, To Kill A Mockingbird. Currently I’m working on Brandwashed, Making Joe Falcone, Gumbo Ya-Ya, and A Confederacy Of Dunces. I am always reading three or four books at a time and they usually take me a while to get through them, but I’m in no hurry. I enjoy the journey, not the destination. A few that I have refused to read: Twilight, Harry Potter, anything on Oprah’s Book Club (except The Road), anything Stephen King (over-rated). I am currently listening to The Hunger Games on audio book while spending endless hours on the road, which is enticing me to read the rest of the series.
These are the books I love. Tell me what you love, what you’re reading or what you think of my list.
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