I admit it, I’m addicted

One of my favorite things to do is curl up with a good book, I think I may have mentioned that a few hundred times. I don’t just love to read, I love books, I like the way they look, I like the way they smell, I like the way they feel in my hands. I don’t just go to the library like a normal person, I buy my books because I keep them. I have bookshelves all over the house that are stuffed full of books. Remember that I worked in a library for several years so you can rest assured that my books are on the shelf alphabetically by author and then title. I’m just geeky enough that I also created an Access database that has all my books in it. I can find what books I own that I haven’t read, very few, what books I have by a specific author and best of all, what books I’ve loaned out. When I loan a book to someone two things happen – first my name goes on the inside of the cover in ink and second the book gets checked out of my database with the person’s name and the date they took the book. Sounds pretty geeky, I agree, but I don’t lose many books because I know exactly who has them. Whenever I see my Mom I bring a bag of books that I’ve read for her to borrow and she returns a bag of books that she’s read, at any given time she has somewhere around thirty or so of my books. Some of my friends call it the P**** lending library, I just smile and nod.

Over the years I’ve read a lot of books, I enjoy the books I’ve read, life’s way too short to read a bad book so I just don’t. There are however a few books that stick out as different from the norm. These books have characters that engross me, they envelop me, they become my friends and I’m sad when the book ends. These are the books that I have to read the next in the series immediately, do not pass go, do not wait, gotta have it like crack. I’ve stayed up all night to finish some of these books because I have to know what happens, no it’s more like a need, a deep yearning that prevents me from stopping until all is resolved with the story at hand. Of all the books I’ve read this has happened exactly three times with Armistead Maupin’s Tales of the City series, with J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series and with Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight series.

Tales of the City begins the story of Mary Ann Singleton, her abrupt move to San Francisco and the eccentric folks she finds herself surrounded by. She settles in an apartment building on Russian Hill owned by the eccentric, pot smoking Anna Madrigal. This is a fun look at San Francisco in the 70s and an engrossing, interwoven tale of many real characters. I’ve read the seven books that make up this series many times and anticipate reading through my well worn copies many times in the future.

What with one thing or another, they all run rampant through enough mood rings, gay beaches, opera societies, macrame, free sex, and Quaaludes to choke a mule.

If you’ve been living under a rock, you may not have heard of the Harry Potter sensation. I am freely admitting that I was, still am, caught up firmly in this madness. I wait with a high degree of anticipation for the next movie and will be there within the first week of it’s release. I’ve read all the books multiple times, as each new volume came out I had to reread the previous volumes so that I didn’t forget any of the back story. Teenage wizards, the ultimate fight between good and evil, what’s not to enjoy? I was one of the many who were sad to see the series end with the seventh book, but Rowling did justice to the franchise and ended it well. I became so immersed in these stories that I sometimes forgot I couldn’t just wave my wand and turn on a light.

My latest literary find, aka obsession, is the Twilight Saga. The story centers on Bella Swan who leaves sunny Phoenix and her mother and moves to rainy, gray Forks, Washington to live with her father. Shortly after arriving in Forks, Bella finds that she’s obsessed with a boy in her class who could be one of the worst people in the entire town for her to fall for. Through the twists and turns of high school life and angst the story follows Bella and sucks you in so completely that you’re amazed when the book is finished. I found myself in the rain forest of the Washington peninsula and so engrossed in the first book that I didn’t realize that I was just pages from the end and that several hours had flown by. I’m eagerly anticipating the release of the movie this winter and hope that the translation from page to screen will be as successful as it has been for the Harry Potter books. The final book in the series is being released in August and I’m pre-ordering it from Amazon so that it will be delivered right to my door.

I have to admit though, I came late to both the Twilight Saga and the Harry Potter series. My Mom encouraged me to read Harry Potter having become hooked herself and my friend Nettie told me about Twilight. I held back on both series because I doubted that they could be as good and addictive as promised, I was wrong. If you haven’t read these three series you need to, go get them and read them, then let me know how much you love them.

I’ll wait…