My Love of Books

My mom had been a librarian all of my life so I actually never owned a lot of books until recently. Book reports were a breeze when I was a kid. I'd call Mom when I got home from school (which I did anyway, so she knew I was home safely) and tell her the assignment and then she'd bring the book home to me.

Even after I moved out, I used the library a lot. I lived in NE Pennsylvania for a short while and I was a regular at the town library. I didn't have a lot of friends in PA, probably because I was always at the library, holed up in some corner, reading the biography of Audry Hepburn or a Diana Gabaldon volume.

I didn't really start buying books until 2 things happened: I became a mother AND I discovered the joys of Amazon. These 2 events collided in the same year and I was like a crack-head for more and more books. The UPS driver was my dealer; he delivered my packages the first winter FRU was born and we couldn't get out much b/c there was a lot of snow that year. I made up a little package of home-made Christmas cookies when he arrived the week before the holiday. As I recall, his name was Chris, but it could have been anything, just as long as my packages arrived safely.

I'm not that bad now. I can control my addiction. Mom still occasionally brings me something to read if I ask and I occasionally make an Amazon order.

However, once I purchase a book, I very, VERY rarely let it leave my possession. Books are one of those things that always get passed on, but rarely back to the person from whose personal library it came. When someone asks if they can borrow one, I break out in a cold sweat and hesitate. I'm embarrassed-really, I am- but I can't help it.

Jodi Picoult, Diana Gabaldon, Pat Conroy, Larry McMurtry, JK Rowling...oh, I'm getting the flutters just thinking about them.

I remember in one of the Ya Ya books a scene when Sidda realizes that she's not the first person to read the books in the library and how she's devastated that she wasn't the person to discover their greatness. I'm not that bad, but I'm lousy at sharing their greatness.