a life long love affair

Books and I have always been deeply in love. I've been reading voraciously since I was four - devouring, inhaling, absorbing anything I could get my hands on. When I was little I would read whatever I could find, even books that were really much too old for me. I would pick up my mom's books off the counter where she'd left them and disapear into the yard or the basement, to resurface only when finished. My family always knew that if a book was missing, it had likely been absorbed into my collection.

Even now, when I don't really have the time, I read two or three books a week. Sometimes they're old friends, the books I come back to time after time, year after year, the spines bent and broken, the pages wilted from being dropped in the bath, the covers falling off from use. To me that's the sign of a great book - one that is faded from being read, being reread, being lent to friends, being dragged around in schoolbags, purses and suitcases. These old books have become a part of my life, and part of who I am. They have woven themselves into me, so that each story I have read, each character I have met, has become part of how I think and how I live.

Bookstores and libraries are like sacred places to those who love stories. When I see a Chapters or an Indigo...you've lost me. I can be found hours later, sitting on the floor, surrounded by potentials, auditioning them one by one. It's a feeling of these huge unreached depths - that there's thousands of stories out there that I haven't read, that might become my new favorite, or that might touch me in some way I can't even fathom yet. I love libraries in the same way, but I hate returning books - I like to keep them, so that I can return to them when something makes me think of a character or a phrase or a plotline.

I have a tiny little Ikea bookcase absolutely jammed full of well-loved books - they sit side by side, on top of each other, layers deep. There are piles nearby of books on loan from friends, books I haven't read yet, and books that just plain won't fit. I'm addicted to the feeling of enchantment that comes from meeting a wonderful new book - how it hovers in your mind for weeks afterwards, bits of the story surfacing here and there.

This is why my absolute favorite thing in the world, the thing that keeps me centered and sane and happy, is curling up with a book.