Books, books, books... Almost always fiction, but even in that narrowly segregated world there is so much variety. Historical fiction, contemporary, chick lit, drama, 'Oprah book club' drivel, mystery, horror, cloyingly sweet romance, and everything in-between. Humorous, heart-wrenchingly sad, breathtakingly engaging, inane, boring, clumsy, exquisitely crafted.Every time I walk into a book store I have to suppress the quickening breath of excitement. It never dulls, that feeling of stumbling into a cave of treasures. And yet, a truer comparison would be that of walking through a flea market - stalls filled with garishly worthless objects that you have to sieve through in order to maybe, maybe stumble across one real treasure.
Is there any worse disappointment than investing your hopes and time into reading a book that never quite lives up to the potential you thought you saw in it? It happens to me more often than I like to admit, but I never get used to it. When I have time, I'll browse and collect five, six, seven books at a time. I never read the first page. Instead, I'll read the description and ignore other people's comments. Then, I'll open a page at random, usually near the middle and start reading. One paragraph, two. I'll do it with all the books in the stack, slowly dividing them into "yes", "no", and "maybe" piles. When I buy the book and read it, I'll come to the already familiar passage in the middle of the book, and always I'll experience a vertiginous sense of deja vu even though in the back of my mind I know I should expect it.
It's rare that I leave the book store without at least one new find. I'll go through multiple piles of books, but if I have time, I'll keep sifting until I find at least one to walk out of the store with me. But even more disappointing than not finding anything are the times when having been seduced by a sentence or a word or a thread of a story, I'll choose the book and, upon reading it, discover that the seduction was fleeting and the rest of the book is as mundane as the lives many of us are escaping when we read.
It is rare that I'll give up on a book I chose myself. I'll buy a book for the language even if the topic doesn't interest me, but so often I've regretted buying books for the topic when I knew, deep inside, that the language was awkward. I'll admit it, I like a pretty turn of phrase and sentences that have a rhythm to them, be it gentle or striding. I like language that flows and carries the story but so often I've found a good story spoiled as it fights its way through jumbled up words and broken snippets.
I've read books that have made me cry on and off for hours as I've turned the pages and books that made my heart melt with love and joy. I've read books that made me want to scream with frustration and books that left me feeling as if I need to wash my hands after finishing them. I've read books I couldn't wait to finish and fling away and books I couldn't wait to pick up again and read over and over.
I love words and stories and books... and in that deep, abiding love lies the secret to why I've never seriously tried writing and getting published. I know what it's like to pick up a book, fight through dozens and maybe hundreds of pages to like it and ultimately close the last page and be disappointed. I know what it's like to open a book and get lost in its world to the point where when the real world intrudes, your impulse is to push it away and retreat back into the crisp white pages. I know the feeling of the unread pages melting away as the book speeds to its end and wanting to know how the story concludes and yet yearning for it to never end.
And so to anyone who has the temerity to ask, I say... I will not write for a wider audience because I love words and stories and books.
