50 books and reading: what are books to me?

A little over one year ago, I struck out in a challenge to defy Steve Jobs’ comments that people don’t read anymore. In the last hours before June became July, I turned the last pages of my 50th book, The Girl Who Played With Fire, and found myself facing a mixture of emotions.

Pride: Because for the first time in several years, I read in my “free time,” I visited libraries, and I sought out books by authors I had never read before. I made forays into non-fiction literature – for my classes, of course, but also because I wanted to learn more about this world and the people around me.

Accomplishment. Fifty books! Need I say more?

Defiance. Take that, Steve Jobs. (Plus, if people didn’t read any more, would the Kindle and his brethren be so phenomenally popular?)

But a little bit of disappointment, too: I didn’t challenge myself in my reading material as much as I would have liked. I did a lot of nonfiction, yes, and a bit of adult fiction that was new and challenging to me. But during my most stressful times, I fell back on childhood comforts provided by Tamora Pierce and Mercedes Lackey, relaxed my eyes on the wild expressions and star illustrations of manga.

I’m not ashamed of my love for these mediums, but part of me wishes I had challenged myself to read more, read new things, read people I’ve never spoken to before. I can only speculate on whether it was laziness, reticence, or a bit of both that prevented me from branching out and becoming one of those girls who always had a book tucked under her arm everywhere she walked.

I’ve decided to make some new goals for my second journey.

• I want to challenge myself. I want to dare to try more nonfiction outside of my class texts.
• I want to experience more fantasy. As an aspiring fantasy fiction author, this can be considered research as much as leisure. But I have read so few of the “classic” fantasy authors and titles – something I wish to remedy.
• I will dive into my greatest love, history. There are dozens of historical fiction titles that I’ve been itching to read, and I want to experience more cultures, time periods, and diversity through these titles.
• I will read popular fiction – but only to a point. I think popular fiction is wonderful, but there are a vast number of under-appreciated authors and titles that I want to seek out, find, enjoy, and share.

A friend told me that I was the only person she knew who owned books and read books for fun. To me, that is the saddest thing I can think of for friends and acquaintances of my generation. Because I have experienced, learned, and challenged my creativity so much through this hobby and passion of mine, and I think it’s unfortunate that others don’t find the same pleasure and joy that I do in it. Books and libraries have always been a safe place for me – a refuge and shelter, as much as a ship sailing to new adventures, and a timeless map that has taken me all over the world through time and space.

These past two weeks, I’ve finished roughly five more books. I’ve become that girl who always has her nose stuck in a book, who can make her way to class without tripping over the curb or walking into any doors and poles. Someone asked me if that – bookish, introverted, nerdy – was the kind of image I wanted to project.

You’re damn right, I do.

I’m proud of my love and my books. I hope I can continue to have this passionate relationship with them for years and years, and grow old with them together.

How many people are so blessed to find their love so early, so fully?

page.483; the pillars of the earth.

In my journey to devour more books, I have made it a personal goal to broaden my reading material and choice of leisure texts. My first tangible effort towards that was an attempt to pick up a nonfiction title. Freakonomics was unexpectedly intriguing; I read through the book in two days, and re-read certain parts again simply for the pleasure of it.

My second tangible effort began last week, during a respite from studying. I was trying to decide what books to borrow from the library. The Invisible Gorilla was already on hold in two different library systems, and I didn’t have any particular recommendations in recent weeks, so I decided to dive into bestseller lists and Google.

A Google-search for “best historical fiction” and “historical fiction bestsellers” led me to some great lists, including this one, which sorts a bunch of historical fiction novels by period! And of course, I do regularly clock into the New York Times’ Bestseller lists. A common title between all three were The Pillars of the Earth, by Ken Follet – a book I had purchased on impulse some three or four years ago, after seeing it on NYTimes’ bestseller list.

This time, I decided to grab the copy (all 962 pages of it) on my trip up to San Francisco, to see if I couldn’t actually make some real headway with it this time. With some trepidation, I opened to the author’s preface, the only part I had finished last time.

Some 36 hours after reading the prologue’s first sentence, I find myself halfway through The Pillars of the Earth. It’s so fantastic, I wanted to share a short summary (that absolutely will not do it justice!) here.

libraries and books.

Between yesterday and today, I managed to add two more books to my 50 Book Challenge!

It’s been really wonderful to rediscover my love of reading this summer. Early in June, I decided that I really wanted to get back into the swing of reading for leisure. Reading for class is far from boring (most of the time), but since there is an enforced deadline and enforced external goal (needing the material for essays, or tests), the reading doesn’t have the same kind of relaxed atmosphere as reading for fun is.

Added to which, most class texts happen to be dry and so thick with content, it chokes you.

When I started my summer classes, I decided to re-familiarize myself with the local public library system for the sake of my reading goals. It’s somewhat of a far cry from the two I used to frequent back in the S.F. Bay Area, both of which were extensive in their selection and relatively new in architecture, being newly renovated. I was disappointed, but I didn’t give up. I started borrowing for leisure reading to take with me on the bus and trolley, and soon, I was eating up book after book…

I decided to branch out and look at some of the other libraries, not just the close ones, and I found a gem at Fenton Parkway, near IKEA and Costco!

There is nothing like the smell of books and the silence that comes from studying and reading in a library, punctuated and interrupted only by the sound of the metal cart passing by on its way to empty more books into the shelves, and of other patrons flipping pages in their own selections. The fact that books are so dear to my own heart, for other reasons, only adds color and warmth to a library, even one that I’ve never been to before.

In the mean time, I love to check out any recommendations for readings that you might have. :) I’m currently starting The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin, and have about a dozen more on my table, waiting to be read; but I’m always hungering for new authors, especially since I’m the type that likes to keep to what I know I’ll enjoy.

Ah, libraries. I hope I can add a book to those shelves one day.