Book Lust

I have a confession to make...

My husband is leaving tomorrow for work. He'll be gone for a little more than three weeks prior to being back for one.

We had a lovely family dinner of bacon and eggs in bed while watching The Incredibles for possibly the eighteenth time this week.

I want to get in as much time with him as possible before he goes...

 

But I've fallen in love.

Book Love.

Actually, at this point, it's only Book Lust. But I can feel the love coming. The all-consuming love that makes me ignore my family and my phone, my work and occasionally hygiene in order to find out what happens next to my favourite characters

It doesn't happen very often. Maybe once or twice a year if you're lucky.



I remember when Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows first came out. I'd pre-ordered it from Amazon. I waited impatiently. It arrived. I had house guests. I decided to prepare a delicious and complex meal so that I could spend the evening in the kitchen, sneaking in pages in between stirring. So rude!

I can't help myself.

I've been a Book Luster my whole life. Summer holidays stretched before me and my equally book wormy bff, L. We were completely taken aback when the local library limited the number of books we could take out in a week. I think it was twelve...we'd sit side by side with two stacks of Babysitter's Club books and chew through twenty four in a week. That's a little less than two hundred books a summer.

Currently my lust is attached to the I Am Number Four series. Series Lust is the worst. There's already all that foreplay...

The Fall of Five will be my constant companion from now until I turn the last page. It's YA (Young Adult. Which I am not). I have a special fondness for the YA genre. Perhaps because of all my time spent with it as an eleven-year-old. There's no Book Love like First Book Love.

I would not be a writer without the books I've loved. They were the constant companions of a shy pre-teen and a lonely single mom and all my other iterations in between.

Because all I want to do is get back to reading, I'll leave you with a list of some of my more recent Book Boyfriends:

- The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

A beautiful and richly imagined Universe. I haven't wanted to be in a book so badly since Hogwarts.

-  The Quartet by Lois Lowry

The Giver was the first book in this series and it came out when I was still in elementary school (which was, to be brief, a few years ago). Last summer, I re-read it as I often do and decided to google "What happened to Jonas at the end of The Giver?" Instead of receiving the straightforward Internet answer I'd been hoping for, I received the life-changing news that Lois Lowry has written MORE BOOKS and that The Giver was actually a series.
Kiss me goodbye for at least a week.

- The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss

Completely my friend A's fault and she was the one who paid the price. A brilliant fantasy novel with complex, flawed characters and breathtaking plot turns. Described (well) as Harry Potter for grown-ups. The sequel is equally readable and there's a third somewhere on the horizon.

- I Feel Bad About My Neck by Nora Ephron

I picked this up shortly after she died. She was a brilliant writer and taught me a lot about who I want to be as a writer just by being so transparent. This is a lovely, lovely memoir. So funny. Please read.

 

-The Perks of Being a Wallflower  by Stephen Chbosky

I know this has been made into a film and although I'm obsessed with Emma Watson because of my aforementioned Harry Potter addiction I loved this book too much to watch it.

-Outrageous Openness: Letting the Divine Take the Lead by Tosha Silver

Tosha is brilliant. If you have met me, I have very likely recommended this book to you already.  It's hilarious and insightful without being the least bit didactic. Also, I'm friends with her on facebook which makes me feel hella cool.

I'd love to write more, but I have some reading to do...

What are you reading? What are your Lifelong Book Loves?

I'll be the one cheering on Loriens from the sidelines,

Er