Bibliobulia

Bibliobibuli

I am not sure how old I was when I started reading books. Yes, I was introduced to the Dick and Jane books in grade school but I am talking about when I started to really love reading. It was so many books ago that my memory fails me.

I think it started when my grandmother would take me to downtown Minneapolis on the bus. It was an hour ride from our house to the city center. Our first stop was Woolworth’s so we could sit at the lunch counter and have BLTs and a malt; then off to the book corner of Dayton’s Department Store. Grandma said, “Pick out a book, I want you to learn to love reading.”

Well, that was the start of my addiction. It was the Hardy Boys Mystery’s that got me hooked. On the bus ride home I devoured half of that first book. I couldn’t wait for another bus ride, lunch and book. My best memory of my grandma is encouraging me to love to read.

I don’t know how many books I’ve read through the years. All I know there are a lot. My taste in books is rather eclectic: classics, mystery, biographies, history, fiction, theological and thrillers. Until recently I loved the feel of that hardbound or paperback in my hands. Now I have gone electronic and read all my books on Kindle. This portable electronic devise goes everywhere with me. What a joy and privilege to have a book at my fingertip and the desire to read it.

Here’s a quote attributed to H.L. Menken about reading: “There are people who read too much: bibliobibuli (book drunk). I know some who are constantly drunk on books, as other men are drunk on whisky or religion. They wander through this most diverting and stimulating of worlds in a haze, seeing or hearing nothing.”

Thanks Grandma for giving me the gift of loving to read!