At some point after entering healthcare and realizing its emotional mine-laden environment, I took up the hobby of hunting down really good books. It's a coping tactic, mostly. To enter into another world full of life, life that essentially doesn't matter. It's become a useful escape, a chance to be just a little more literary and an excuse to tuck away from life for a while. To recharge the batteries needed to deal with the occasional monotony and frequent responsibility of caring for others. It's a ritual now, and every couple of weeks, usually on a payday, I will search for a little piece of gold between two covers at the bookstore. I enjoy the research, the hunt, the succulent success of finding the next perfect novel to fill my downtime.
First, while I'm nearing the end of the last book I purchased, I do a little research of what to read next. I'm not like my husband. I don't enjoy picking up any old tattered thing and, even after I'm sure I hate it, keep reading for the sake of completion. I find this to be an insulting waste of my time. So I look things up, I dig around a bit. One place I've come to enjoy is a website called Shelfari. Each member has their own "shelf" and will write impromptu book reports of what they've put on it, or will at least rate the quality. With the wonders of technology in favor, the site will also suggest what to read next based on what I've already read and have placed on my shelf. Since we tend to be creatures of habitual likes and dislikes, this is very useful. Some websites ask a series of questions of what I'm looking for, funny or sad? safe or disturbing? sex or no sex? I pick my categories and a list of books to consider is generated. Other sources I only rarely admit to looking into is The New York Times Bestseller List and even Oprah's Book Club.
After I have a list of a few potential "readers" in hand, I schedule a day to head to Borders, heaven on earth, to browse the shelves. I like the scheduling part. It's a beautiful thing to see "Go To Borders, 1:30" next to "Pap Smear, 8:05" and "Groceries." Amongst all the must-dos in life there are the occasional, glorious want-to-dos that keep us humping along. I usually go on a Friday, park far enough away to take my time smelling the crisp air as I walk, enter the double doors with the brass handles, through the alarms and stop. Briefly, only for a moment, long enough to take in the smells of coffee, breakfast brownies and cakes, and to hear the rustling of pages and soothing tap of laptop keys. I clutch my list, excitedly as a child in a toy store, and say with satisfaction, "I'm just browsing," as a staff member comes to help me. I'll find all the books on my list, usually consisting of four or five choices, and pile them up in my arms. I have found in bookstore culture that it is perfectly acceptable to sit down on the floor, which is usually a rug, and browse through your picks. As long as you and your shit is not in the way of passing patrons. I like this little trait. It's intimate, homey, and completely socially unacceptable anywhere else. So I bid my germ phobia goodbye for a half hour, rebel against my Purell and sit cross-legged in the fiction section. I begin to acquaint myself with what I've picked and start whittling away at the list until one sole survivor has made the cut.
Then, at this point of the ritual, the process, I put all other books back and make my way to the section where the rug turns to wood floor and the shelves are replaced with tables and chairs. Here the techies swarm, eating up the free wi-fi like hummingbirds to flowers. Sometimes there's an elderly man reading a paper newspaper and a couple or two having croissants and coffee for brunch. I order a coffee with a funny flavor and settle in. This is where I read several pages, as a minor preview, to see what I'm getting into. This, in a sense, is foreplay. I need to vibe with the author, I need to be sucked in, to become unaware of my surroundings as I sink into the words. Within the first few pages I need to be intrigued, piqued, moved, before I will even consider continuing. I am with books, as in most areas of my life, high maintenance. When I've read enough to be satisfied and secure with the purchase, I finish my coffee and head to the checkout counter. I will hand the lady my Borders Rewards card and she will ask, "Did you find everything alright?" Yes. And savored every moment of it.
Most people find my book-searching methods painstaking, neurotic and mildly obsessive. Perhaps, but they can keep their ideas. These are the same people who smoke on their breaks, drink to oblivion on the weekends and become compulsively ill whenever the caseload gets too high. Not I. Stress punches at me just like it does at anyone, maybe sometimes more. During each shift however, no matter how much a hurricane, I have the richness of that book to look forward to. To end my day. Curled in a warm bed with my husband snoring next to me, I read into my own sort of heavy abeyance that won't leave me sick in the morning. My book searches are the moments devoted entirely to myself, time taken to be alone, to enjoy solitude. To, as Franz Kafka said, ..."break the seas frozen inside our soul."
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When I have a live class, I try to mention using keywords--step, stage, how, goal etc. in the case of process--but I often forget because in my heart I think constucting an essay around handholds is a poor way to go. I know there are more graceful, organic, unintrusive ways to write and hope my students will find them.
ReplyDeleteAs you do here.
There are two places where for a moment this reader broke loose from the writer's spell: "child in a toy store" made my cliche bell ring; "shit," also in graf 3, brought me to a complete halt. I certainly don't object to the word in writing or in speech, but in an essay about being a book nerd in Borders it's a gratuitous intrusion of harsh dailiness into the softer world of books.