Joy at the End of July

Funny how we react differently to very similar things.  I  recently dubbed a pile of unread magazines a "scary monster in the house".  I started this weekend by acquiring  a pile three times taller and I'm not the least bit scared. I'm actually jumping for joy.

 Because this pile is books  from the Newberry Library Book Fair and I'm dying to read them slowly and carefully - savoring each word. I salivate when I walk past them. I think it's because the magazines stirred a feeling of deadline, whereas the books stir feeling of take your time - enjoy.

By the way, I've dealt with the magazines in my own way - selective reading, laundry room sharing, and farming out to my kids took the pile down and it's now just a matter of taking one to the beach each time  I go to thumb through as a warm up for my book reading.

If you've never been to the Newberry Library Book Fair and you're a reader, you need to treat yourself to a trip there next spring when they have one devoted only to mystery writers and again next summer when you can purchase anything from antique classics and scholarly tomes to the latest pulp fiction, CDs and DVDs. 

Just walking through the Newberry Library and seeing and smelling and touching some of the tens of thousands of volumes all in one place,rubbing shoulders (and elbows and hips) with other book lovers gives me a feeling of well being and oneness with my fellow man. Well, maybe not the guy who gets there before me every year and gets help from the volunteers, who squirrel away his favorite authors for him. He and I happen to like the same authors. Maybe next year I'll beat him to some of them.



Kindle lovers need not apply.

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