Of books and tastes

I am an avid reader. Okay, that's a gross understatement. I prefer the term bibliophile. It seems slightly more appropriate, if still somewhat inadequate. My Dad says he only knows one other person who reads as much as I do. I can think of a few, but still, I tend to stand out in my obsession. At least I did. Now that there are two small children and all their stuff to haul around, the only time I find my obsession showing in public is when we're walking out of the library -- and there's one tote bag for the boy's books, and one for mine. (Yesterday there were a few of my books in their bag too.) I don't ever intend to walk out with that many books, but they were unusually cooperative when I went to get a couple, so... I kept browsing.

My sons, happily, display the same love that I have, especially Timothy. He got a headlamp for Christmas, and is quite content to stay in bed now, as long as he has a nice pile of books and his headlamp. Andrew even said something yesterday that sounded suspiciously like "read a book." He'll bring you a book and just plop on your lap until you read it, then he'll toddle off to get another one, sometimes before the first one is done. =)

My husband, on the other hand, never read much before we got married. He found it completely bizarre that I could be perfectly happy wandering the local bookstore for hours, and consider it an outing (Hey, we were broke newlyweds, I was a cheap date!), and still, he loved me so much that he would take me anyway.

He has since discovered a love of reading, that while it doesn't match mine, is probably more to the norm, and we're both quite happy with. My only problem is finding him books. Our library trips are while he's at work, and while he enjoys books, wandering around the library when he gets off work isn't exactly high on his list of priorities. So, it falls to me to find him something he'd love. It's taken me a while, but I think I do pretty well. Sadly, most of the time I ask myself: "Would I like this? No? Then it's perfect for John." I love Fantasy/Sci-fi for brain candy. He won't touch the stuff. Unless it's zombie related, but he doesn't really consider that in the same genre.

He recently devoured The Jungle by Upton Sinclair. And I mean devoured. He's never read a book that fast. I can't stand the book. It's too depressing. Although, I did tell him I thought higher of it than Lord of the Flies. Which, of course, he loves. But then, I read Lord of the Flies in 6th of 7th grade, he read it in 11th. Maybe it's a matter of maturity.

I tried to read War and Peace when I was 13. I could understand the content, but I got bogged down in all the language. At 17 I made it through Anna Karenina, but my opinion of Tolstoy wasn't that much improved, but since then, I've come to realized much of Russian Literature at that time was very similar. Now I know I have to be in a certain mood to read that stuff. Maybe it's that way with Sinclair and Golding. Perhaps if I read them again, I'd appreciate them more. Maybe, but I'm not in the mood to try. If I'm going for informative, there are a lot less depressing books out there.