July 17, 2005

BOOKS



I have always loved reading and I have always loved books. When I was little, my mom refused to put a TV in my room so my sister and I had to think of ways to beat the boredom. And we did. Books. (Thanks mom!)
I suppose my mom influenced us. After all, she was a reader herself –an extensive one at that!- and she did supply us with a lot of reading material when we were kids. She introduced us to nursery rhymes when we were toddlers and taught us how to read and enunciate once we started going to school. As we progressed to High School, the library was my refuge from stress and noise and adolescent uncertainties. As we got older, our books matured too. From Sweet Valley High to Nancy Drew. From Mills and Boon to Stephen King and Agatha Christie. It goes on and on and the wonderful stories just filled my mind with endless imagination.
Lock me in a bookstore and I am in absolute heaven. There is something really wonderful about browsing through the many titles, reading the synopses, running the pages through my fingers and smelling the fresh paper scent. Absolutely wonderful. And PLEASE! Do NOT rush me! I could spend the entire day looking at the many titles, enjoying the illustrations and reading the reviews and I could spend forever just deciding which book to buy.
I have a very difficult time parting with my books. When we have garage sales, the usual things discarded are old clothes, toys or trinkets. But not books. Correction: Never MY books. Never mind if the pages are torn, or the cover is worn out, or there are smudges of oil and ketsup here and there. I just can’t let go of them. Precious things, my books.
I guess my big dream is to have a HUGE library in my future house. A room full of books. That would be so cool. I could spend the whole day there and not care what happens to the world. I would drown myself in wonderful stories that take me places and I would lose track of time. Those are the best books for me. The kind of books that you can’t put down at all even if you haven’t taken a bath since this morning, or your stomach is rumbling because you haven’t eaten for the past 6 hours, or you badly need to go to the bathroom. Yes, those are the BEST books, I say.
I hope to share my love of reading to my boys as well. They already have quite a collection of books I’m happy to say, AND proud to say that their interest in books is inherent and not forced. I hope they will also discover the wonderful delight reading can bring. I know my books will –in the future- eventually get into their hands and I really don’t mind. If my sons are readers, I don’t mind sharing my books with them. If they want to experience the joy of reading as I have, I’ll encourage and applaud them. I just want them to discover for themselves how wonderful books can be. I hope they too will instill this in THEIR kids and I hope they – and we – will enjoy reading for always.