The Shameless Book Owner

I have a confession: I am a shameless book owner. You won't find any first edition pristine condition books in my collection, not unless I haven't read them. Each book finds its own fit in the crook of my hand, and gives my thumb the chance to stay out of the way as the pages sweep by. Everything about the book - the color, the feel, the texture, titles and icons - all of it is part of climbing inside and taking it for a good run.

My favorite kind are the books that force me - at gunpoint! - to bend the pages, write in the margins, endlessly re-read paragraphs and underline the passages. When I am mezmerized by a book, I actually feel a twinge of regret knowing it will someday end. I play a little game where I try to remember this page number or that one, and in the end aimlessly wander around the entire story to find it, lost as it is just where it was. Seems kind of reminiscent of my driving, too.

I love the creased bindings and frayed edges from being stashed in the car too long. I enjoy loaning books out knowing I won't get them back for a year because they will be read and tossed in a nightstand. I like getting them back with a friend's apology that tea was spilled on the pages or they were caught in the rain. I celebrate urgently scouting bookstores in a heroic quest to find copies for friends when the story is so good I can't wait to talk about it with someone.

Books freeze in place long-ago moments of college and sweet smelling babies and tears of transition, the stories and lessons of life made real by living it. They are as much a part of my biography as anything else I leave behind.