Fiction's My Addiction

I've always loved to read and here I will publicly thank my mom for that.  She used to drag us to the public library in the summer and I remember that we could check out as many books as we could carry.  When we arrived back home she would shut us in our rooms (I mean that less harshly than it sounds I think) and tell us we could read or sleep but we had to be quiet for an hour.  With the undeniable wisdom that comes with age,  I now know this is because she wanted to go read her recently checked out books in peace and quiet.  Some of those times I read and I'm sure some of those times I was neck deep in mischief in my room.  Regardless, fast forward 25 years, I still love to read. So thanks, mom! 

I've always loved books: the smell, the anticipation, the escape.  Working in a bookstore lead me to only love them more.  I became OCD about organizing and alphabetizing.  I loved recommending a good read, helping people find what they were looking for, and having access to the library of my dreams.  I am proud to say I have never cracked the spine of a book and I never turn down pages - if you truly cherish books, you know what I mean.  It is, in fact, probably the only job I can truly say I've ever loved. 

I was the staunchest naysayer of the Kindle, the iPad and all things e-reading.  E-reading also pretty much doused my dreams of owning a quaint little bookstore/wine shop.  Independent bookstore owners across the world are, sadly, closing their doors.  Will my children really never stick their nose in an actual book and inhale the scent of ink and time?  Say it ain't so!

And yet, I caved to society.  I came to the shocking realization recently that I now prefer my Kindle.  I literally had a Barnes & Noble gift card sitting on my dresser for over a year (!).  In life before e-reading, this would have never happened.  O and I went to the bookstore to spend the gift card.  While I always love being transported back in time by the smell of a bookstore, I didn't realize how much I had changed.  I picked up a couple of books I had been eyeing for a while and my brain did a little dance: wow, that print is small, two pages at the same time?!, it's so thick, how am I going to read this, I can't read this in the dark, how will I hold my glass of wine? 

Wait, what?! Who am I?

And so here I am.  Looming is the completion of my latest Kindle book: "The Light Between Oceans" by M.L. Steadman (review to follow).  And I am facing a stack of "real" books.  Oh my.  How the times have changed. 



Books are, and always will be, magic.