I read 198 novels, a little non-fiction, and nearly 1,000 recipes in 2009. If I skip the nonfiction, I may top 200 books in 2010.
The good stories I've read live in my memory, but I have nothing tangible from all that reading. I don't even keep the books, sharing them with reader friends. The books I keep are the ones I wouldn't mind people finding on my shelves when packing up the remains of my life.
While cleaning out some boxes of junk from the basement, I found my old college binders. I kept every paper and every course notebook. Reading them was like a journey down memory lane. I remember the day I read Elie Wiesel's Night, and thought the Holocaust made me physically ill; turned out I had the stomach flu. I remember the first married fight Joe and I ever had; I wrote about it and the film "Casablanca" in an Ethics paper. I remember the heated abortion debate in my Feminist Philosophy course while deep in my body I felt the flutters of my first child.
I want tangible records of what I've been reading and thinking and living. Perhaps one day my sons or my grandchildren will come to know me a little better from my recorded thoughts.
And how much more convenient is a blog than dusty boxes stashed in a basement?
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I pause each time I open a book and run my fingers across the page, inhaling the unique scent of the print. There's really nuttin' like a good book to bring me home.
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