Confessions of a Bookaholic: Bury Me Under a Bookstore

I am a bookaholic.

That's the statement I would make if there were a 12-step program for book addicts. But to be honest, I don't want to get rid of the sickness.

In the age of e-books and "kindles", I risk labeling myself as a fossil, a dinosaur, an out-of-touch irrelevance because I still love the way a book feels when I hold a hardback between my two hands. The "feel" of turning pages, of letting my eyes roam over the paragraphs--or in some cases--lines of poetry. Just to show you how sick I am, I even love the way a book smells.

My addiction had early roots in my childhood. My mother stocked the house with all kinds of books--novels, her nursing textbooks, and a special treasure just for me: the multi-volume set of My Book House Books. Volume 1 was filled with nursery rhymes with old-fashioned illustrations. That was a favorite of my pre-school years.

Succeeding volumes, all the way up to No. 12, had stories and poems in graduated levels of reading. These books had hard blue covers, with some gold trim--I still remember them after all these years--and I loved what it felt like to look at the pictures and turn the pages.

My grandmother was an "enabler" in my addiction because she read to me--a lot. I can remember hearing a child's version of "Pilgrim's Progress". I know there were other titles but right now I can't tell you what they were. I was fascinated with the way she would wet her finger to help her turn a page. I wondered why she had to do that. Today I know.

My addiction for books got out of hand (in my mother's opinion) that day in my pre-school life when I opened a hall closet (crammed with all manner of things in no particular order) and pulled out an obstetrics book my mother had kept from her nurse's training.

I think there were diagrams of the unborn baby inside the uterus, and there were probably pictures of babies being born. But I didn't really know what I was looking at, although I'm sure my mother thought I had grasped every graphic detail. I just liked the idea of opening another book, turning the pages and looking at the pictures.

My Aunt Jennie gave me a Christmas gift each year that was always my favorite. I remember that one year it was Louisa May Alcott's book Little Women. Another year she gave me Alcott's book Eight Cousins. Even as a child, I saw a book as a gift that kept on giving. The enjoyment was always available to me. All I had to do was open the covers and start reading.

At my elementary school, I was a regular in the school library where I checked out biographies of famous people: Abraham Lincoln. Clara Barton, Andrew Jackson, Daniel Boone, George Washington, Davy Crockett. I remember that a certain publisher had a series of these life stories, all in bright orange covers. At the ages of 8,9, and 10, I was more than impressed and inspired by these famous people who left their marks in one way or another.

A mark of my third and fourth grade years was the craze that all my girlfriends and I had for books about horses. Black Beauty  was one I remember but there were many others. It seemed so romantic to devour stories of a boy or girl having a special horse to train and ride. I never became an accomplished horseback rider myself, but it sounded so wonderful when I read about it.

Still another book mania for me were the Nancy Drew books in which a very clever, resourceful young woman solved all sorts of crimes (but without references to slashers, ghouls, or semiautomatic machine guns). She drove a "roadster"--which I had no knowledge of, but it sounded like something very cool and hip.

As I grew older and went to college, my addiction worsened. I found myself unmistakably drawn to the magic words of "Book Sale" if I saw them outside a bookstore or written in the store window. Those two words were the equivalent of saying "Have a drink" to a recovering alcoholic. As I moved from one city to another (from a junior college to another college for my last two undergrad years), I transported quite a few books.

But the condition worsened when I graduated from college and packed a car for the drive to Auburn University to begin studies for a master's degree (in English,naturally!) As the years went on, I was shameless, utterly driven, in my quest for more books and more books. There was always ONE more book that I just HAD to have. And joining the Book-of-the-Month Club didn't help my condition, either.

When I married and began having children, my addiction ballooned because I wanted my children to start out life surrounded with good books suitable for their ages. (Later, when my children had children, I bought them books, too.)

As years have passed, I find myself at a new stage of my addiction. I want my books to have good homes so from time to time, I give a certain book to a friend who can enjoy it. I am still surrounded by enough books to maintain my comfort level, but I am trying to wean myself from book sales and to pass along books I have enjoyed to others who can sample and taste them, too.

Reading a book on a computer screen is better, I suppose, than not having a book to read at all. But relic that I am of a bygone age, I shamelessly admit that I love the "experience" of a book. It takes me places I want to go. It lets me meet people I have always wanted to know. And it provides me a legacy to pass along to those I love.

Yes, I am a bookaholic--- who expects one day to look into God's face and say, "So where is the library around here?"