Books

The greatest gift is the passion for reading. It is cheap, it consoles, it distracts, it excites.
-Elizabeth Hardwick

I was lucky. My parents read to me. Reading was not only encouraged, but also expected. Books were a priority, as were trips to the library.

And so, the sight of old books takes me back to my childhood. What is the one thing I can’t walk past at swap meets and antique fairs? Old books. Books with titles I grew up with, I consumed. Book that were my best friends.

I spent years trying to find an old set of The Junior Classics published by P.F. Collier and Son, copyright 1912. It is one of my most precious possessions. It took me over thirty years to find the set. It cost me $41.98 and worth every penny and hour of searching.

There has always been something addictive about old musty books—the mellow hard covers, the dog-eared, cream-colored pages, that well loved smell. Old books look lived in. They make a house, home to me. And nothing is better than finding an old book with writing in the margins. Like a subplot, those words tell me another story.

I have truly tried to control my addiction. I try to thin out my bookcases (I mean bookcases, not one but many) every now and then. It’s painful. How can I bring in more books when my bookcases are full? How do you toss my father’s copy of Miracle on 34th Street, (first edition), Best Stories of O’Henry, History and Rhymes of the Lost Battalion, or my mother’s College Typewriting (third edition), set of Heart Throbs (National Magazine, copyright 1905), my childhood’s Bambi and Bambi’s Children, My Friend Flicka, Black Stallion (all found at a swap meet as siblings have original).

I love a good story. I don’t care what media it comes to me: movie, book, music, poem. As you can imagine my office is stuffed with books, old and new. It is a love, a passion, an addiction. Read to a child—for them, for yourself. Read to them from your old, well-loved books. Start an addiction.