angela's blog

My newly acquired husband loves books. Most people I know like to read and try to make time to do so. JJ loves to read. He reads all the time. Constantly, without ceasing it seems. In the morning he reads in the shower. How, you ask, does he accomplish this? He's tall enough to hold the book out of the way with one hand while washing with the other. He's mastered it to the point where he can do it for all but maybe 2 or 3 minutes of the shower where he needs both hands to rinse off his hair and face. He reads on the couch, in bed, sometimes while working on the computer. Once upon a time he read while he was driving. Thankfully, he has learned the error of that particular habit and has stopped reading while driving. He loves the library, he loves bookstores, and the funny thing is, he reads a lot of things most human beings find probably pretty dull. For instance, he'll go to the library at UNC and check out 15 books about a single aircraft, with every detail about every part of the craft written down in black and white. Or he'll check out a handful of books on some obscure battle that happened during World War II. Give him a book and a bathtub and if you're not careful you won't see him for the next hour or two (although in a 1 bathroom apartment I sometimes need to ask him to get out of the tub so I can use the bathroom). When I was a kid I loved to read. I read almost like JJ does now - after school, during dinner (my parents had to make a rule about no books at the table because I would read and not speak to anyone), in the tub (my parents had to make a rule about that, too), and before I went to bed. I'd leave books all over the house, especially in the bathroom. Mom and dad had to use the phrase "The bathroom is NOT a library!" at least once a week, usually when my mother cleaned the bathroom. It got to where she would threaten to throw my books out if they were in there when she entered with her mop and bucket. In high school I picked up swimming and that left a whole lot less time for reading. Lately all I've read are the Harry Potter books as they come out but I honestly and truly wish I could find a new subject to read about. I've tried to read some Christian authors like Phillip Yancey but the problem with those is that they generally make me feel like a bad Christian so although I find them useful, I tend to need to read those with purpose rather than pure pleasure. I checked out some books awhile ago on the Romanovs and had to return them because they were going to be overdue but those were great. Fascinating stories about real people - my favorite. Autobiographies and non-fiction are generally my genre of choice. I also need to realize that there's no way I can read at the rate that JJ does. For awhile it was (and sometimes still is) discouraging to start a book because if he saw me reading it he'd ask me how it was going and his good-hearted comments also led me to think things like "Am I reading fast enough? Why is it taking me so long? He's already 2/3 of the way through his new book!" The worst was when he was reading the same Yancey book as I was. We would dog-ear the pages and every day I would read half a chapter or a whole one, or whatever I had time for, and even though I started the book 2 weeks before he did, I watched him slowly catch up. I'm competitive enough that when he passed me, I gave up. I never finished that Yancey book. I sort of wonder if he did. But until I get used to the fact that I'm the slow-reader in the family he and I just need to not share books. When we move in 6 weeks to our new apartment we will have to move all of JJ's books. Every single one. He's already gotten rid of probably 500 of them to make space for me to move my stuff in here. I wonder if I'll ever love books like JJ does ... and if I don't I guess that's okay. It's hard to keep up with someone who reads like he breathes: as an elixir of life.

Posted by Mrs. Cooper on 7.20.2005 at 7/20/2005 11:52:00 AM | Permalink