Book Love

One of the first books I ever stole was The Heather Blazing by Colm Toibin.  I still own that book (my old flame AL called it my trophy, this before I told him that I used to be a book thief which I think amused and then put him off). I still haven't read it. But just now I finished Toibin's newest novel Brooklyn and was fairly wowed.  I wonder if I will pick up the other book(s) now? I mean to buy since I don't steal anything anymore.

Towards the end of Brooklyn, there is a passage that is simply gorgeous.  I say this fully admitting that I am somewhat biased because it was a scene that could have been lifted from MY life, circa 2009 versus 1950s Brooklyn/Ireland.

The mother in Ireland avoids talking about the daughters life in Brooklyn.  The daughter wonders why her mother doesn't seem to have any interest in her new life.

The reading A.D.D. has passed I think.  Now I am on to compulsive book-buying and book-reading.  Purchases in the last month:

• The Museum of Innocence
• Lark and Termite
• Brooklyn*
• Love Begins in Winter*
• Generosity
• Gourmet Rhaphsody
• Prelude
• The opera reference book
  

*read so far

I'm missing a few more but this is what I can think off the top of my head.  This happens to me in the fall -- all the good books come out and I go a little nuts.

When I was insane, jobless, newly single and newly un-mothered, I started volunteering at a bookstore downtown to keep myself occupied. It was a bit of a pain in the ass, customer service is not my forte.  But now I realize that I love the time I spend at the store. I've found my niche -- I don't have to talk to anyone, the people who work there seem amused that I say very little but work faster than any volunteer needs to. I listen to old opera records in the sub-basement while I clean the old books. Sometimes some of the clients are there and we listen to the old music together. We don't talk to each other. The four hours go by quicker than I'd like and I'm always sorry I have to leave.

Beginning of this year when I was pregnant and A was in Upstate New York shooting a movie, I holed up in his apartment surrounded by his books.  I imagined myself reading to my baby or a child at a later age reading next to me. Then I would freak out and smoke to banish the image.

Then after the abortion, I would sit around and cry and stare at my books, wishing I could find any one of them compelling enough to read and lose myself in.  But those first few months were rough.  I did everything half asleep.  I read a lot of books and remember none of them.

It occurs to me that I expect my books to give me comfort.  Or maybe it's not books so much as words.  When I was 14, I wrote endless letters and I read shitty romance novels borrowed from the Los Angeles Public Library.  All those words made me less miserable. And when I was happy, the words keep me from being too happy.

Good deal for a few bucks.