In spite of my lack of reading in recent years, I’ve always loved books. For a long time science fiction and fantasy were my preferred genres, but I’d occasionally dip into non-fiction or, some of my favorites, text books.
With text books I never remember the actual titles, but always enjoyed trying to figure out and learning the different subjects covered. I’ve always believed that knowing a little bit about everything is a good thing and so I make an effort to keep up.
The internet age has changed my “study habits” quite a bit. With the advent of Google search and Wikipedia it isn’t hard to look up whatever may be crossing my mind at any given moment. Between that and constant moving since 2006 I haven’t really invested in many physical, solid books. I kind of miss them.
Rene is an avid reader. Much like Belle from “Beauty and the Beast” she always has her nose in a book; well, the modern equivalent, a Kindle. In fact that’s probably the best gift I’ve ever given her. Sure, she likes the wedding ring, but she gets a lot more use out of the Kindle.
Seeing her love of books has helped re-kindle (no pun intended) mine.
Last night as I was doing some catch-up work I glanced at the meager book case I have on my work desk, all blank books that I have used, am using or will use in the future.
Blank books have always been my weakness in book stores. I like that they have to be filled and I like to find things to write just to fill them up. When I was in high school and “16 & angry” my friends and I would spend a lot of time at Bookstar, which was another brand of Barnes & Noble. We’d be there for hours sometimes looking at reference books, the magazine rack, whatever we could find. My favorite, though, was the blank book isle. Being at that age where everything you think and feel seems monumentally important meant that these ideas required a book of equal impressiveness to contain them. I had many: The Burlap book, the gray book, a series of bugs Bunny retro poster journals, the “coffee” book. I still have them all. Many are tucked away in storage because what’s written in them, while gospel of the times, can now clearly be seen as the ramblings of a self-important teenager. It’s embarrassing to look at. Oh, the bad poetry! But even with that baggage I still like to look at the blank books.
Now I’ve become quite a Moleskine fanatic. I keep a series of blank pocket sized books, I use their cover for my tablet and I even bought the attachable pen. It’s all very pretentious, but I’m O.K. with that.
I still have a weird desire to just fill the books, but now I make an effort to make sure what I actually write down is worth reading again later – even if it’s just a reminder for myself. It cuts down on the number of books that I buy, but that’s probably a good thing. Besides, it’s the browsing at the books that’s always the most fun.
So that’s my obscure obsession, what about you? Let me know in the comments!
Also, Rene really does love her Kindle, it’s great. I have links at the bottom for the Fire and new Paperwhite if you’d like to check them out.
See you next time!
