Bibliophilia

It is obvious in our household that we love books. Bookshelves line most walls in almost every room of the house. I draw the line at the bathroom, though. Paper and water mix too well to allow their presence in such a moist environment. Family photographs often have our heads cut through by the shelves that border our living spaces. We have several thousand, collected between us through a lifetime, yet it is still not enough. I have a huge "wish list" of books I would love to have someday. Not just books that I want to read, but old books that I grew up with. Like the set of hardbound "OZ" books I used to thumb through to stare at the pictures within. Or that old collection of "A Thousand and One Nights," or or a thousand other wonderful tomes I can think of.

Some of my earliest memories are of books. Our house was a close second to the local branch of our public library. So many books lined the walls that I am fairly certain they are sinking my parents old American Craftsman-style house into the ground. I have fond memories of reading comic books in the bathtub, and science fiction while hanging over the ends of the couch. I don't know if I was an early reader or not (my mother has forgotten my true childhood and replaced it with a more "perfect" one), but even my earliest memories are filled with books. The smell of the old pages fills my blood, and the feel of ancient cracked leather and dusty pages I can sense when I close my eyes. Some of my fondest places to visit have always been used bookstores (and hardware stores and art stores, oh and fabric stores, but those are different stories). I could sit on the floor for hours lost in another world, turning pages and oblivious to the rest of the world going by.

For all my love of books, in the last several years I haven't been able to read a tenth of the books I would like to for research much less for pleasure. It is a sad state of being, but I am slowly trying to remedy that. I have a few eBooks I am slowly reading through, as well as some "real" books and magazines I try to read a little bit of every now and then. I have tried to dutifully catalog all our books at LibraryThing, but I know I have probably missed a hundred or so. Every time we buy new books (or I receive them through PaperbackSwap, another awesome site,) I often forget to log them in. Someday I will get them all listed, and maybe some day I will have more of the books of my hearts desire. And maybe even someday I will have the leisure time to read to my hearts' content. Now, tell me about *your* earliest book memories, I would love to hear them....