Book meme.

Because poor Caz cannot comment, and this was much better than the post I was going to make. Trust me. Please bear in mind that I am desperately ill and that's why this won't come out like I want it to.


Here's how it works: I list six book-related things about myself, then I tag six people, and they do the same. If they want to, of course.

1. I haven't read very many books. Sometimes I feel like a fraud for saying that I'm "reader" because ... I actually haven't read that many books. Or at any rate, I haven't read as many books as I think I should. When I was younger, I read books all the time. It's been years since I read like that, though. So the problem is, the amount I had read was really impressive when I was younger, but as my Age has gone up, the Number Of Books Read has leveled out a bit.

2. I'm more likely to read a book that I've already read than read a new book. I think the first and second item on this list might be related. Do you? I have this same problem with music. I want to find new things, but more often than not, I'll stick with something I already have and know. Most of the books I've read I've read more than once. Some books I've read ten times or more. I think this might have something to do with the fact that I have certain mannerisms from childhood that I've never grown out of. I'm still a picky eater. I still do that weird humming thing when I need to concentrate. I still like reading the same book over and over and over.

3. I really wish I could get some of my childhood books back. This is somewhat difficult because I don't remember what some of them were called. Like that one about the witches that I had my parents or my sister read to me even though I knew all the words and could read it myself. Pretty much all of them are out of print. The ones I'd like to find the most are "Aloysius Sebastian Mozart Mouse", "I Am A Mouse" (I liked books about mice, apparently), that gorgeous edition of "Heidi", and that big blue book of Greek and Roman Myths for Children.

4. I have different editions of the same books. I don't know why. Not even books I'm particularly fond of. I just seem to acquire books that I already have somewhere.

5. I don't read modern literature. Generally, because I break this rule all the time, I read books that are at least 30 years old. I figure that life is short, and there's a lot of books out there, so it's better to read one that's been tested by time and lots of student papers: There's a greater chance I'll like it. Plus, left to guess, I wind up reading things like "Twilight". And look what happened there.

6. My father told me this story about my grandmother. My grandmother had a lot of books. Shelves and shelves of books from "The Rubaiyat Of Omar Khayyam" to the Complete Works of Dickens to "To The Actor" to Shirley MacLaine's autobiography. Most of these books were thrown out by my mother when we moved. I've probably mentioned this before because I still haven't gotten over it and probably never will. Anyway, my father used to have conversations with my grandmother about some of the books she'd read. Then one day my mother told him ... she'd never actually read any of them. She would just read the first page and the last page, and the synopsis if there was one. And the hilarious thing is, I've totally done that, before I'd heard this story. I've totally had conversations about books I've never read.