Why I Love Books

I started out with my love of books quite early. My mom always had books around her. As a teacher it was a huge part of her life. I was always read to, eventually memorizing books before I could actually read them. Books were treated well in our house. To this day, I hate it when I bend the cover of one of my books. This is of course nearly impossible when a paperback is carried around as I tend to do. I have read for as long as I knew how. There were short periods of time when it wasn't as important to me as it is now but I can't remember a time when I didn't have a book started. Most of the time more than one. I am not a fast reader. I average about 30 books a year. I know people who can read 30 books a month. That would break the bank for sure. I am a good reader though, I read carefully, and re-read things so that I really get the characters, and the situations. There are very few instances where I skim, and that happened in a book I just finished.

I generally buy all my books, borrowing from friends on occasion. I buy 99% of my books new because I have germ issues. On the rarest of occasions I'll go to the library book sales but I only buy books that look really clean and have nice neat covers- hardbacks preferred. I'm not as anal as I sound but my germ issues prevent me from going to the library these days. The problem is that I really love the library. My aunt was a librarian and I can't tell you the number of hours I spent in the library. My aunt took great satisfaction in making me work off my fines. Oh, I had lots of fines. Remember I'm not a quick reader? It wasn't until I was out of college that I started having issues with library books.

After I read a book, there are a few things I can do with it. If I really love the book, to the point where I know it's a keeper and I'll read it again, it goes on my bookshelf. If I really liked the book, want to keep it around a little while but not sure if I want to re-read, it goes in a box. If I want to share the book, knowing that I'll get it back, I share it with my co-workers. If I want to share a book and don't care about it, I send it to my best friend who lives in England. If I know I won't read it again, and I don't want to share it with anyone, I donate it to the library for the book sales.

I could go on but why bore you. I'm going to post this and then make an entry for a book I just finished last weekend.