Guess Who I Slept With…..

I’m single…so I can pretty much sleep with whomever I want (as long as they want to as well!).  However, this single guy goes to bed every night with a published author. This is my version of sleeping with someone these days. I read until I am sleepy, then I put the book under the other pillow, and drift off to dreamland.  Not a bad life! A friend texted me the other night and asked what I was doing. I told her I was in bed with Fredrik Backman. After a joke about switching teams, she asked me how the book was going.

The book was going wonderfully. “Us Against You” is an amazing book that will give you an amusement park ride of emotions. You will love the characters and all their flaws. You will cheer for them and miss them when it’s over.  But this post isn’t a book review. It’s just that having recently finished that book and how I refer to my sleep time routines made me think again about how important books are in my life.

Some brief memories of books and reading from my life show that books have always been there. I can’t ever remember laughing harder than reading the short story “Home on the Range” in Homer Moyer’s junior high reading class. I was trying to read it out loud to the class but couldn’t because I was laughing too hard as was the whole class.  Good times!

Reading a book, as a teen, called “Wild Venture” . It probably is the book that really drew me into being a serious reader.  Do you have a book like that in your life?

Once I was on a business trip and was reading an exciting book on the plane. I was two chapters away from the ending. We landed at an airport for a stopover but were getting back on the same plane. I left the book in the seat pocket and went to grab a hot dog. I got back on the plane. They had cleaned it and tossed my book!  I couldn’t remember the title. I will never know if they got that kid out of the well.  I’m guessing they did!

I took a class in college called The English Novel. That class introduced me to my favorite classics author, Thomas Hardy, and to his book “Jude the Obscure”, my favorite book of all time.  Hardy’s body is buried in Poet’s Corner of Westminster Abbey. But his heart was removed and is buried in his beloved English countryside.  How cool is that?!

A book has even been an important part of my spiritual side. “The Tibetan Book of Living  and Dying” confirmed my belief system and gave me the courage to say the words “Yes, I’m a Buddhist”.

Not every book memory is a good one. I read “Fifty Shades of Gray”. While it did retain my interest, the writing itself was terrible.  I recently tried to read “Tom Sawyer” and hated it. Why is this considered a classic?  I will never know.

I hope that , if not reading, you at least have some constant in your life, that will be there through good times and bad.  For some it is working on cars and for others gardening. For some it is woodworking and for others it is cooking. Find a passion!

Exciting day for me today. After a much needed haircut, I am off to the Friends of Parkland Library Book Sale! Have a wonderful weekend!