The Story of 125 Books

Now that both our fully grown human son and our teenaged daughter are gainfully employed, my husband and I find ourselves on Friday nights with an empty house and nothing to do. Well, not nothing. There’s always something to do, it’s just most of it is horribly unappealing at any given time. I mean, the bathroom could always use a good cleaning, but is that really how I want to spend my time? I think not.

This most recent Friday, instead of tackling the household filth, my husband and I decided to go to dinner at our favorite locally-owned Chinese food establishment, because going out to eat without two bottomless pit offspring is way cheaper. (Aside: we followed our dinner date with an exciting round of grocery shopping, so at least something productive was getting done.) Like most Chinese places, they give fortune cookies when you finish your meal. Now, I have rarely met a cookie I didn’t like, and fortune cookies are one of these. They taste like lightly sweetened cardboard. The best part of the fortune cookie is that little slip of paper inside, which is sometimes dumb but other times remarkably prescient. This was my fortune:

Yes! Leaders are readers. Writers are also readers. Nearly every piece of writing advice contains “read a lot” in some form. I think for most writers, reading is where it starts. I read everything I can get my eyes on: books, news stories, advice columns (my addiction to advice columns will be an upcoming blog post. I have thoughts and feelings).

I used to be a one-or-two-at-a-time book reader, back when I still read real books. I got an e-reader about 10 years ago (a Kindle, if it matters. I know Amazon is the scourge of the devil and is ruining the world because capitalism, but they have figured out the e-reader thing), and since then, I’m almost embarrassed to admit how many I read at a time now. Almost. Right now I am reading seventeen. At once. Well, not really at once. I read a chapter and then move to the next one in the rotation. And I have one hundred and eight in my to be read “pile.” I know. It’s a little ridiculous. It also means if you recommend a book to me, I’ll be interested and want to read it, but won’t want to increase my total to eighteen (and seventeen is really pushing the limit as to what I can handle at one time), so it will go into the to be read “pile” to die. I have good intentions, I swear.

I thought every so often I would post a list of all the books I’m reading at a given time, but after more thought, I’ve decided against it, mostly because I can’t think of anything more self-aggrandizing. But on the other hand, that’s what this whole website is. But I still won’t do it, unless y’all want to know.

So, I think I’m going to go read a bit. You should, too, if that’s what makes you happy.

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I mentioned earlier that my son turned twenty this week. He shares a birthday with my father, who was a little older than my son is now when I was born.

I don’t know if somehow twenty is younger now than it was then, but I look at my own twenty-year-old and think there’s no way he could handle a baby now. But my dad did it, and I like to think he did a pretty good job, too. Happy Father’s Day, Dad. I owe most of who I am to you. Love you to pieces.