I have a confession to make. I am a bookaholic.
There is a name for my incurable disease: I have a severe case of bibliophilia. I am a voracious reader and I am always looking for a new book to read. It’s a fairly harmless obsession even if it can get expensive but, mostly, it takes a lot of space.
I love the way books smell. And feel. And look. The promises a title gives. If a foodie is a person who has an ardent interest in food and alcoholic beverages (Wikipedia) then I wish I could say I am a bookie (and not refer to a character that takes illegal bets on horse races, fights, sports games.) If a foodie seeks new food experiences then I could describe the concept of bookie as a person who likes books, or enjoys reading, or knowing about writers. But since the word is already taken, let’s stick to book lover, bookaholic.
I was lucky to be born in a home where books were treated like kings and queens. My dad was interested in almost everything: history, natural science, crime, biographies, mysteries, westerns, politics – there wasn’t a genre he hadn’t explored. And the older and lonelier he got, the more his books became his companions. He taught me to respect books; once you open one, you comit yourself to finish reading it, even if you do not really enjoy or understand what the author wants to share. Never break the back of a book and do not fold the corner of a page to remember where you took a break from your reading.
I can disappear in a book and forget to eat, drink or sleep. A life without books is unimaginable and in my experience, reading habits can tell a lot about someone’s character and personality. When I travel, I always try to find the place in the hotel where they collect preowned books and I often find myself daydreaming as I read them, thinking about my book soul mate who held the very same pages before me. I try to imagine who the person was depending on the title, the plot but even on the way the book looks like (if there are stains, cornered or missing pages, notes…) and many times I wish I could meet with the author and understand where the story comes from.
When sightseeing with me, my children usually fear walking by a bookstore. They know that if they let me walk in, I will be gone for at least half an hour (and that is a very short time for me visiting my best friends). I do not like shopping but i can never resist an interesting book, I can easily choose between a new pair of shoes and an old pocket-book.
I have tried to inspire my children to read, and I think I have pretty well succeeded since two out of three share my love and understand my passion for reading. Lately, I have made it my mission to introduce the Paper World to my husband (well, we are not married but I think “boyfriend” is too young a word to describe our relationship). It is such a joy to see how he connects or disagrees with the heroes of the story, entering the World of Written Words and taking curious steps into it.
I love sharing the experience of a book with someone else so I have tried to live up to BookCrossing’s motto: “If you love your books, let them go”. BC, BCing or BXing is defined as the practice of leaving a book in a public place to be picked up and read by others, who then do likewise. It’s about letting books “go free” so that others can find and read them. I tried. And here I have another confession to make: I practice BXing one way: I take but I very seldom give. I have never found a book I wanted to read and left it for someone else. Mea Culpa. They say it’s a great way to get rid of books you don’t want but I want to keep all of mine! I can lend them but then I want them back.
The hardest part of moving and leaving a place is not having enough room to bring my books. It would have been nice to keep every one of the books I’ve read within my reach, but then there would have been hundreds of them sitting on shelves and feeling abandoned. The best place for any book is in the hands of someone who enjoys seeing words on paper, hungry to find out what’s going to happen on the next page.
What is your relationship to books?
If you’ve never used bookcrossing would you?
The only important thing in a book is the meaning that it has for you.
~ W. Somerset Maugham
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