Mood:
amorousNow Playing: A Trip Down My Bookish Memory Lane
I'm having flashbacks to parts of my elementary school years, when I hung out in the school library during gym--I was permanently excused from gym because of my severe asthma. I'm also flashing back to parts of my high school and college experiences when I got immense joy out of wondering through the stacks--the height of them blocking out the dim flourescent lights above. Especially in college, when I has 12 floors and two sub-basements at my disposal, and I would have three and four hours between classes to kill. Deep down, I was a library geek. Deep down I was that guy from the Twilight Zone who wanted the world to stop for a little while so he could read without being disturbed. You're reading the blog of a woman who looked forward to 9 months of bedrest during a pregnancy so I would have nothing to do but read. (Sidenote: I lost the pregnancy--it was ectopic and not viable.)
Even before I started working at the library or considering becoming a librarian (which, incidentally, had nothing to do with the fact that I liked to read), I'd hang out at the library at lunchtime. I'd browse the adult fiction--first mysteries (Robert P. Parker's Spenser novels are my favorite), then the audio books (all the "Classic Literature" my high school was too broke to own), and finally I'd drift into the sociological memoir books (like Sex and the City by Candace Bushnell or Susan Kaysen's Girl, Interrupted.) I also had a penchant for "women's studies." In high school, I read mostly romance novels and plays. It was during that gawky era that I became a fan of Tennessee Williams' plays. Until this day, I've yet to read anyone who can capture the human frailties like Mr. Williams.
At work, when I'm helping parents find books for their young children or helping teens find books for themselves, I have to reel myself in because after I help them I can (and will) browse books for myself. Worst yet, I borrow 10 to 20 books at a time. WHEN CAN I READ ALL OF THESE BOOKS? The library is too busy to read at the reference desk, and my commute is too short to really get into a book on the ride to and from work. At home, I'm a wife and a mother of an infant. Not to mention, I have tons of magazines at home waiting for me. Yet, somehow, I squeeze in the reading.
After a near-spat with a patron sent me to the loading dock to cool off for 30 minutes, I was able to finish up the last 75 pages of The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. Surprisingly, I enjoyed the novel very much. I liked the four girls and their character arcs. The book tried to have more depth and food for thought than the current crop of teen chick lit books. When I finished the book, I was both sad and proud of myself. I'm always proud when I finish a book because it is such an Herculian effort on my part to actually finish a book, and I was sad because I wanted to know more about these girls.
Today, during my lunch hour, I browsed through the Young Adult assignment section to look at the hundreds of books that high schools and middle schools have often assigned to their students. I picked up several today--skinny ones so I can get through them quickly.
I picked up Avi's A Place Called Ugly, Forged by Fire by Sharon Draper, The Snows of Kilimanjaro by Hemingway, Brave New World (which I vaguely remember reading but not finishing nor understanding in high school but I blame the teacher for that), Flip-flp Girl by Katherine Paterson, The Island by Gary Paulsen (an author wildly popular with both teachers and kids), Lisa, Bright and Dark (which sounds an awful like Charolette Light and Dark, the ficitional book about the character Brenda Chenoworth on Six Feet Under) by John Neufeld, and The Beast by Walter Dean Myers (also an author wildly popular with both kids and teachers). I'm looking forward to reading them all. That geek that I am.