What I’m reading {plus a confession}

I have a confession to make. I am addicted to books.

When I was little, I didn’t have a library card. We lived eight miles out in the country and we were not library people. I went to a country school which hosted the Book Mobile once every two weeks or so, but that’s about it.

I was not too much into reading, other than what was assigned to me in class.

I read My Antonia in seventh grade. And The Scarlet Letter as a sophomore. 

I didn’t do a lot of reading just for fun when I was younger. Not like my cousin, Valerie, who devoured books then. I couldn’t understand how she could be so engrossed in other people’s stories. She was glued. She sat there in the corner and ate sunflower seeds by the bushel and read and read and read.

Now, I understand.

In fact, I think I have been trying to make up for lost reading time in the past fourteen years.

Fourteen years ago we made a move from Illinois to Iowa. And, for the first time in my life (it seems) I got a library card. At least that's when I really started using one. And, to make matters even better, the library was a short walking distance from our back yard. And still is.

I started immediately feeding my new addiction.

I confess. I check out way more books than I can possibly read in a three week time frame. 

Why? I do not know.

I pay way too many fines. My consolation is that I love the library so much and my money is helping them.

Sometimes I feel like a book hoarder. Like if I don’t check out all that interests me this time, maybe they won’t be available next time. My logical sense knows that this is hogwash, but I can’t seem to change my ways.

A few weeks ago, I checked out a book called Handling the Truth: On the Writing of Memoir by Beth Kephart. This is my favorite book about writing memoir (I’d like to write one someday), plus she listed her absolute favorite memoirs in the back of her book. And, she is a memoirist herself, so I trust her. Period.

I started a Good Reads account that day, just so I could add all those memoirs she suggested. The next time I went to the library, I scrounged for any of them. 

The next time I went to a different local library I looked. 

We went out of town, and I sniffed around in their Half Price Book store, and I did find several on her list. I had to buy one. It was like finding a little treasure. I had to limit myself to one book, mostly since my husband was with me and would surely question an armload of books, even at half price.

“How many can you read at one time?”

Well, it turns out, I have an answer for that. 

Currently, I am reading four books. I have read more at a time before, but four is the current number. 

There is the library book by Corrie Ten Boom called Tramp for the Lord. This book caught my eye because I remember seeing and being so moved by The Hiding Place as a teenager. She and her family hid Jews from the communist regime and then her whole Dutch family ended up in a concentration camp. They all died there except for Corrie, who was miraculously released after some time. 

She then went on for twenty years, traveling the world and telling her story of how God did miracles in the death camp and how God had worked in her and her family through those years.

I am fascinated at how someone’s faith can stay intact in that grim situation, watching people die every day at the hands of evil people. I am also fascinated by the fact that she faced and forgave the German officer responsible for her sister's death.

The Healing Light I picked up at my church's bookstore. It was written in the 1940’s and I am a little fascinated by reading authors from long ago. This book is about healing yes, but it is really about prayer. I am passionate about both.

The Good Good Pig is one of those memoirs that is on Beth Kephart’s list of favorites. I happened upon it in a Salvation Army store. Again, a treasure found! I didn’t have my Goodreads account with me, but it is a story about a pig. So it had stuck in my memory banks and I knew it when I saw it. 

I am still in the beginning pages of this book, but it is an entertaining read and full of all the antics that a young pig causes, like getting out of his pen repeatedly to eat in the neighbor’s lettuce garden. I usually pick this one up as a bedtime read.

I’ll See You Again is also a memoir. I checked it out of the library once before. It is a story about a family who tragically lost three little girls in a car accident and how they lived through the trauma and grief.

I didn’t read it last time it got checked out. I couldn’t bring myself. It seemed too depressing. But, I ran across it again last night and started reading it at the library. Again, I am curious how this mother, this father could survive this awful tragedy and keep their faith and their marriage intact.

I guess you might say, I am addicted to stories. 

Our stories are who we are. As my husband said last night, “Everything I’ve been through has made me what I am today.” I couldn’t agree more.

The good, the bad, the ugly. It all makes up us. God's grace covers all. 

Reading other people’s stories gives me hope. It shows me how different all of our stories are, but how really in the end, we all are alike. 

We all need some sort of healing from the past, hope for the future and strength for today.

I am going to keep reading stories. I am going to keep telling mine. 

And, I’m going to try really hard not to rack up huge library fines.

Thanks for joining me today!
Blessings!

I'm linking up today with Coffee for Your Heart and Three Word Wednesday.

eyes wide open: President Truman and me {day 23}

I have an addiction. The librarians probably roll their eyes. My husband and daughter think I've gone mad. My prescription eyeglasses keep needing improvement. 

I have an addiction to books. 

I confess that I have too many. That I check out too many at a time from the library. I don't mean I've gone over the library's limit for number of books. I mean I've gone over a reasonable limit. A number of books that I can actually finish reading before we take off on another library or Half Price Books jaunt. 

The ottoman in front of my reading chair is always full of books. Right now on my ottoman I have  notebooks with lined paper,
journals (one already full and my current one to write in),
two Bibles,
library books,
devotional books,
pens and highlighters,
a Pottery Barn ad booklet that I haven't looked at yet
and the church bulletin from two weeks ago.
I can't seem to help myself.

I've tried to clean off my ottoman. Hubby says, why don't you clear that off so you can put your feet up? I reason to myself that I should. So I do. I clean it off. I put the library books back in the basket intended for them, my Bibles and other books on the shelf. But, by the next day, I have books littering the ottoman again. 

I do somewhat beat myself up for this. I am not a neat freak, and I'm over that one. But, this one little spot (you would think) would be easy to keep clean. Nope.

I've been trying hard to figure out why I want all of my reading and writing materials within an easy arms reach of where I'm sitting. All the time. 

Last spring my husband and I visited the Truman Presidential Library in Liberty, MO. I was so encouraged to find out that President Truman was an avid reader like me. And, he also had to have all his books piled up around his reading chair. It's true. 

We toured the Truman Home and right there in the study was his chair they said. And, just like it was when he was sitting there for real the books were piled high. I cannot tell you how validating that information was. That the President of our United States of America had a reading addiction like me. 

see day 1 for a list of all 31 posts