Book Lust

"Smell my book," Robert invited as he place a yellowed copy of Augustine's Faith under my nose.
"Um . . . no," I responded.
"Don't you love the smell of old books???" he said drawing a whiff of the copy in his hands.

My husband is so odd, but I love his oddness sometimes. I share his affinity for books. When I was younger, I couldn't wait to get my allowance. On Friday afternoons I would make a bee line for The Book Shelf bookstore. I liked that the owners never batted an eye at the fact that I would take up residence on the floor in front of a section, pulling books off the shelf until I decided on what I would buy. It was a ritual for me and my mother always indulged my love of books.

Books have always worked to my advantage. My parents had a rule when it came to grades. If I got a D on a report card then I was grounded for one week. If I got an F, I was grounded for the entire semester. Grounding entailed no phone, no television, no communication with the outside world. I could go to school, come home, sit in my room staring at the walls, come out for dinner, and go to bed. And my dad was the ultimate disciplinarian, nothing made him deviate from the prescribed punishment. When I was in sixth grade, I made an F in French. I maintain to this day that its still Marc Dominique's fault, but my parents weren't hearing it and I was banished to my room for 9 weeks. In my attempt to not go crazy, I found a loop hole in the system: I was allowed to read. I was already a voracious reader, but with no other distractions I began to read as if it were a sport. I went through the entire shelf of Nancy Drew mysteries in the library at a rate that made the librarian raise an eyebrow to my frequent visits. I put more stamps in those library books than Angelina Jolie's passport!

As I have grown older, I struggle to preserve precious reading time. Robert goes on and on about how media has stunted our ability to pay attention. He regales me with stories about how rural farmers could sit and listen to five hour theological debates. He is constantly putting a book into the kids hands and assuring them that they'll "love it". Perhaps we have lost something in exchange for entertainment.

The only thing better than a bookstore is a used books bookstore! Recently, Robert and I made our way to BrightLight Books and wandered the aisles of books with weathered edges looking for the next must have for our nightstands. And there in the midst of all those choices, he found his smelly book. Lately, I've been building my book collection in preparation for our trip to Ukraine. There will be lots of down time where we will be sitting outside of offices, in the car, at the apartment, on the train, and in the airport waiting. The waiting is one thing adopting families warn each other about. I'm looking forward to it! I've ordered seven books from Half.com this week alone. Let the waiting begin!