15 Things About Me and Books

Stolen from Scalzi, who stole it from others.

1. I feel very guilty if I start a book and don't finish it--an odd compulsion that I've gotten better at ignoring over the past few years.

2. I love to re-read books I've loved, and I've read several more than twice (and Stephen King's It what has to be 6-7 times.

3. I learned to read at an early age, and when I was three my father used to sit me on the counter at the deli he owned in Jersey City and have me read the Daily News headlines to customers.

4. I worshipped the Curious George books as a kid, and have recently taken great pleasure in reading them to my twin girls.

5. I credit The Electric Company with teaching me to read; my father credits the fact that he did all the voices from Sesame Street.

6. Two aunts did much to inoculate my love for reading: My Aunt Maureen, who had many a Shel Silverstein book in her home and who always gave me books for birthdays and Christmas, and my Aunt Christie, who lent me The Neverending Story at a young age.

7. I own many books, but do the vast amount of my reading through the munifecence of my local library system. Libraries are remarkable institutions. Just minutes ago, I clicked my mouse a few times, and within a week, my local library will have for me the first three volumes of Loeb's Superman/Batman stuff and his Hulk: Gray.

8. I own relatively few hardcovers--mainly stuff I know I'll want to re-read and pass down to my kids (Stephen King's books and the Harry Potter stuff among others).

9. I have a real aversion to writing in books--I pretty much never do it.

10. I love used books (the same words for half the price), and have a hard time not buying something whenever I visit one.

11. I love that my niece, to whom I had read Sobel's Frog and Toad stories out of my own copy, which my Aunt Maureen had given me, wanted her own copy for Christmas one year - but only if I would inscribe hers on the inside cover the same way my aunt had inscribed mine.

12. I pine for big, fancy, expensive prestige books (The Complete Calvin and Hobbes) but can't justify the cost to myself.

13. I leave the book I'm currently reading out on my desk at work in the hopes someone will notice and remark on it, and it's worked, a few times.

14. I've written a short novel (40,000 words) that I hope to expand one day.

15. My most prized book is the copy of The Giving Tree that my Aunt Maureen, who died when I was seven or so from a sudden brain aneurysm (she was about the age I am now), gave me. It's a wreck, given that as a youngster I wasn't the kindest to books, but it's treasured.

Until Whenever