Ramblings of an Aspiring Literatus on....Literature

I am unquestionably an avid reader of, well...just about anything. I have my mother to thank for this, I think. As a small child I can remember her  always having a book lying around. They weren't  just "coffee table" books, they were books she actually read and added to our book shelf when she finished. Books have always been a part of my life.

In elementary school my favorite day of the week was Library Day, when we could go to the school library and check out a maximum of 4 books. I loved The Boxcar Children, Nancy Drew, and The Babysitters Club. Granted, they weren't great works of literature...but I was 8, and a kid has to start somewhere. 

As I matured, so did my taste, and eventually I became a great fan of Gilbert Morris, a paragon in the Christian Romance genre. He kept me occupied for a great part of my pre-teen and teenage years. What girl doesn't love a good clean romance?

I now, however,  very rarely read Christian Romance ( with the exception of Lori Wick) and if you were to look at the bookshelf in my bedroom, you might be surprised at the eclectic nature of what you would see. Books by Frank Peretti, Ted Dekker, James Patterson,Jane Austen, the Bronte sisters, Lisa See, Amy Tan, Gail Tsukiyama, Cathy Lamb, Margaret George. and many, many more.

For the past 6 months, almost all of the books I've bought revolve around a common theme: "Finding Yourself".  Strange? I think not. I believe that when we read, we look for and see our own experiences in the story of the hero or heroine. I feel that for the past 3 years I have been on a journey of finding out who I really am, so it is no wonder I look for stories of women doing the same.  

I love my books. They allow me to leave boring old Indiana, see the world, and live new experiences. An unknown author once said, 

"Anyone who says they have only one life to live must not know how to read a book."

I've been to India, Japan, and China. I've journeyed to England, Scotland, and Ireland. I've gone back to the Bible days and met Mary Magdalene, and battled Spiritual wickedness with Frank Peretti. I've literally laughed out loud with protagonists,  read with tears rolling down my face, and waited with held breath as a murderer was revealed. I'v sighed sympathetically as heroines lost lovers, and smiled giddily as these misunderstandings were set to rights.

I'll freely, perhaps even proudly admit, I am a bookworm.

Many people when asked," what would you do if you had one free day a week, where you could do anything you wanted?" would run through their to do list, 10 pages long, some would say clean, some would say take off to some foreign place for a day trip...but me? My  answer every time would be, brew some coffee, get my blanket, and snuggle up on the couch with a good book. 

"A book is the only place in which you can examine a fragile thought without breaking it, or explore an explosive idea without fear it will go off in your face.  It is one of the few havens remaining where a man's mind can get both provocation and privacy."

  ~Edward P. Morgan