So you might know that I like books. I think I’ve blogged in the past about how much I love them, and always have. As a child I would participate in a Readathon for Multiple Sclerosis (or Muscular Dystrophy, I can’t remember which). Every summer I would read and read and read because jesu forfend I go outside and get some sun already (TM my dad). You probably also know I married someone with a similar affection (or affliction, depending on how you look at it) for books. I recently categorized all almost-2,000 of the books we own. (I just realized we have accumulated about 40 books since that post less than six months ago. POINT MADE.) All of our books are also recorded in LibraryThing. We are those kinds of geeks.

I love the look of them, either stacked haphazardly on a nightstand or neatly alphabetized on a shelf. I love the feel of them, the weight of them in my hands, the pages beneath my fingers. Whenever Mr. Zoo gets a new book, he holds the book up to his face and kind of smells the pages with a look of minor reverence on his face. (I mean, SERIOUSLY. If I didn’t know he was The One before seeing that, well, that would have been It.) I feel a contentedness like no other when walking into a bookstore or a library, much like the feeling I get whenever I walk into our home, or, say, Target. Like I can finally exhale and relax. For me, books are not only comprised of characters, they have character. Back in school (when everyone thought that the year 2000 would bring things like flying cars and visits to the moon), a teacher spoke about how In The Future, books would probably be digitized and would only be available in disc form rather than by using paper. I was aghast. FLABBERGASTED. I tried to imagine what my future home would be like – me in a shiny silver spacesuit-type outfit, my robotic maid bringing me dinner, and my personal library consisting of rows and rows of computer files containing my book collection – and, well, I wanted to cry. Dramatic? Maybe. But it’s also why no matter just how cool the Kindle may be, I am probably never going to get one. Probably. I kind of have trouble keeping a scornful look from my face when people talk about Oprah’s book club and will actually go out of my way to find a copy of a book to purchase WITHOUT the Oprah seal on it.

I have book lists on Goodreads and on this site as well as, yes, a spreadsheet. At any given time I have at least a dozen books checked out from the library, not to mention the [at least] 100 books that I own on my to-be-read bookshelf. I am constantly checking out Amazon’s recommendations based on my past purchases (though, seriously? I’m lucky to get one good recommendation out of 20 there), doing tagmashes on LibraryThing to see what else is out there, perusing the book group reading lists at the library. I beat myself up for never reading the classics that I should have been forced to read in high school but wasn’t, and now I find it difficult to motivate myself to do so. I also berate myself for not reading more contemporary fiction – I mean, how many times can I respond to “Have you read Middlesex? Love in the Time of Cholera? The Road?” with “Umm, no, but I’ve heard of it.” However! I did read Pillars of the Earth (one of my favorite books of all time) like 15 years ago before it was everywhere I looked, and I’ve read Kite Runner and She’s Come Undone, SO THERE OPRAH.

Ultimately, I am mostly drawn to historical fiction, which is a genre that straddles the border between dignified, well-researched historical characters and events with which the author takes some plausible but unsubstantiated-by-fact liberties, and, well, bodice-rippers that happen to contain some characters that actually existed in history. My reticence in admitting this is my preferred genre is caused by the majority the well-done historical fictions that unfortunately employ cover art that leans more toward the Harlequinesque. But I can’t keep away from these books in spite of that slight embarrassment. Just when I think I have read every single historical fiction about the Tudors, I discover a new one or five. Or other books on basically any royal in England or also maybe anywhere in Europe. Two years ago I decided I wanted to read more about Arthur and Camelot, having only read The Sword in the Stone as a child, and have since read at least 20 versions/collections of this legend.

All of the above leads to the two short facts I wanted to share with you, which, let’s face it, could have been blogged about much more efficiently, and for that I am sorry.

When I am about to go on a trip, I spend more time thinking about which books to take with me than I do anything else. I generally bring, on average, eight more books than I will ever have the time to read on vacation. Because you just never know what you’re going to be in the mood for! Or what if you only bring ONE BOOK and then it turns out to kind of suck? I can’t risk that kind of thing. Must! Have! Options! (Which, admittedly, is where the Kindle does sound like ten kinds of awesome. Because lugging around twelve just-in-case books for an eight-day trip in a suitcase that has to fit certain weight restrictions is kind of stressful.) (Not that I did that a few months ago when I went to Hawaii or anything.)

Last night I finished The Forever King by Molly Cochran and Warren Murphy and IT WAS SO GOOD. I stayed up until 1:30 AM IN THE MORNING because I just could not put it down, even though my client’s dog was here (the cough-drop-eating one) and I knew I’d be waking up at some god-forsaken hour (6:30am, for those of you playing along at home) and would be exhausted and useless today (check and check) but I just couldn’t help it. There are two more books in this trilogy THAT ARE IN MY HOUSE RIGHT NOW and it’s taking all I have to not start them now, but I am holding off because in two days we are leaving for the Family Oblication and I want to make sure I have good stuff to read while I’m there.

So basically this entire post was a really long way of saying: Stayed up too late. Good book. Zoo tired.

“When I get a little money, I buy books. And if there is any left over, I buy food” ~ Erasmus