So Many Books, So Little Time

"For those of us with a bookish bent, reading is a reflexive response to everything. This is how we deal with the world and anything new that comes our way. We have always known that there is a book for every occasion and every obsession. When in doubt, we are always looking things up."

Diane Schoemperlen, Our Lady of the Lost and Found

My Indian name is Nose in a Book. While I wasn’t exactly born reading, I dragged a dictionary around with me when other toddlers had a blankie. I still have that dictionary, much the worse for wear.

One of my resolutions this year is to read less because my addiction just about took over my life last year. I read 120 books, ten per month. One of the books I read was about a woman who spent a year reading a book a week and her friends thought she was crazy for undertaking such an impossible task. Lightweight. I’d like to keep my reading down to one book a week.

The reason I take baths instead of showers is because you can’t read in the shower. I read as I eat my meals, watch TV or anytime I have a few spare minutes. It adds up to a minimum of two hours per day.

One of the reasons things got so out of control last year is because I started listening to books on CD in the car. At first I listened to seminars and non-fiction books only. Then I got an audio book by mistake from the library. I thought I had ordered the book not the CD book, but I decided to give it a try and I loved it. Now I can’t drive without listening to a book.

Yesterday, I finished listening to Jodi Picoult’s Vanishing Acts and immediately started Dana Stabenow’s A Deeper Sleep. This one is only six discs, so I need to line up another audio book so I don’t miss a beat when I finish this one.

As for my resolution, I’m making a little progress. I read eight books in January. Here’s what makes me crazy: Close to 200,000 books are published in the U.S. every year, and I can only read 100 of them. That means that every year there are 199,900 more books I can’t read.

©2007 Dixie Darr. All rights reserved