Obsessive Compulsive Biblioholism.
As with most biblioholics, my addiction began at a very young age. I was one of those awkward girls who preferred books to people and couldn't see the point in crushes or boy band worship. Anne Shirley was much more relevant to my life than the New Kids on the Block. This would have made me a social pariah, I think, except that I learned to at least try to hide my ignorance and nod knowingly when my friends talked about insipidboybandofthemonth. I probably did a bad job of it, but they didn't take the piss out of me too much.
My favorite books were mostly science fiction and fantasy -- C.S. Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia, Madeleine L'Engle's Wrinkle in Time books, and Susan Cooper's Dark is Rising series. Unlike most girls I knew, I never got into horses or unicorns, but I did like a few books about animals -- Anna Sewell's Black Beauty, E.B. White's Charlotte's Web, and Orwell's Animal Farm. I also liked (and still prefer) books about non-girlie girls like Anne Shirley, Laura Ingalls, and (later) Signy Mallory.
The first "real" (adult) book I remember reading was Jane Eyre in fourth grade. While the teacher was spouting off about "Fire Safety Week" I was sneak-reading the book I had tucked under my desktop. This was a small disobedience I would commit again and again. I couldn't help myself -- books seemed a lot more relevant than school work. The teachers were obviously confused about how to deal with me -- yes, I wasn't paying attention in class, but I was not paying attention in order to read books.
Why start with Jane Eyre? I had read a YA novel about a fat girl who spends her time hiding in her closet reading books and eating (It All Began With Jane Eyre: Or, the Secret Life of Franny Dillman by Sheila Greenwald). I loved the Franny character so I thought I might love the book she loved, as well. And I did. I've read my copy near a dozen times since then and can still quite safely call it one of my favorites.
Selection
How do I decide what to read? I work at the reference desk of a large public library and a lot of books go waltzing past my desk everyday. It is hard to resist a pretty cover (yes, I pick books by their covers) or a co-worker's enthusiasms. Indeed, I fear many of my selections are, well, the literary equivalent of impulse buys. A patron or coworker will enthuse about a particular book and the next thing I know, I'm neck deep in Betsy-Tacy books. Or Billy Collins. Or some weird micro-history. I also tend to read books that are reviewed in Booklist, Library Journal, and/or Publisher's Weekly (although, I trust their reviews less and less) or were reviewed in Sojourner and Book before they went defunct. Most of the books I read are written by women as I prefer books with strong well-developed female characters and I don't see a lot of that in works by men. Genre-wise, I mostly read sci-fi/fantasy and contemporary fiction with the odd romance thrown in out of sheer perversity.
Even though book clubs are the thing, I try not to read Oprah or "One Book, One X" type selections as I find I don't usually like them very much. There's something about being told I will/should/must read or enjoy a novel that just gets my back up and spoils any chance of me actually doing so. Blame it my tortured experiences with The Great Gatsby and The Scarlet Letter in high school, if you like.
Unsurprisingly, I also read a lot of feministic nonfiction, like Naomi Wolf's Misconceptions and Jean Kilbourne's Deadly Persuasion.
The large public library I work for is actually quite far from my home and I spend a lot of time in my car, now. Thankfully, libraries these days are generally full of audiobooks and I can always find something to listen to. This means that you will find many more audiobooks listed than ever used to be in this little log as well as many fewer books. Please, do not write to me and tell me how audiobooks are making me illiterate. Also, please do not write and tell me how manga/graphic novels/comic books aren't real books. Basically:
If you don't like what I read or think my notes on your mostfavoritestbooksie are complete crap, please feel free to express your opinions in your own damn reading log.
Order
This is my second attempt at keeping track of what I read. I used to have a battered composition book I listed the "good" books in, but I kept losing the book (sometimes for years) and my idea of a "good book" changed too regularly for the list to be useful. Hopefully, this site will put an end to:
*clutches forehead* what was that book I read? about those women in persia? and the girl with the red monkey? agggh.