Why Do I Read?

Whisky Prajer has set my wheels turning with his latest post and book reviews.

As early as I can recall, I have had a love affair with books and expect to until the end of my days. I read anything and everything (just about), but do I choose reading material with a lofty purpose in mind - such as expanding knowledge, or gaining wisdom?

Not consciously at any rate.

Alas, my reading habits have the tendency to mirror my dietary addictions; I just crave losing myself in dimestore trashy heaven. More whipped cream on that malted, please, and pass down that new Kathy Reichs'.

Upon further reflection, I wonder...can't most of us 'fess up to being closet readers of some type of malnourishing unredemptive literature? Those bad-for-you Mass Market Paperbacks in the fiction aisle. (Hear that hiss?)

On those days when work has been a tedious, minutiae of crap, the last thing I want to do is to delve into some deep internal cleansing lofty tome that is good for my brain and my colon. The late and great David Halberstam may be a PPW (Pulitzer Prize Winner), but it's like cutting my little toenail into the quick when I try to read his stuff. It's akin to taking my vitamins - I know it's good for me to read someone like Halberstam, but my throat and likewise my brain goes into lockdown mode whenever I try.

I want chocolate, wine, and a hint of raunch! Bring on that Patricia Cornwell, Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, or even a rerun of Dame Agatha. Maybe if I am really throwing all pretenses aside, I might be tempted with a Rosemary Rogers or two. Don't knock Sweet Savage Love until you've nibbled a page or two. (I will say that SSL was the best of her bodice-rippers, and I have been disappointed in any of the others - Fabio cover or not.)

Speaking of Rippers, did I tell you the one about...oh, yeah, why I read. (This is part of my problem, I am somewhat ADD in my thought processes.)

Yes, well, on the subject of Rippers, I will sometimes get in a kind of time warp and want to read everything available about a person or place, i.e. Jack, the Ripper. Or, maybe it is Civil War era stories, like Killer Angels.

Hey, I can hold my own at any fisherman's pub on the subject of Captain Kidd.

I always get a bit squirmy when I compare my booklist to someone else's. Then, I get a case of the so-many-books, so-little-time vapors and think I shouldn't be wasting my reading time with junk.

Ahh, well.

If I succumb to my latest medical adventure, don't send flowers; just fill my cowboy style pine coffin with a few McMurtrys, maybe a couple of Victoria Holt's, and perhaps a Tony Hillerman and I'll be set for wherever I land up next.

Oh, I forgot. I want to be cremated and scattered across the Big Bend.

For good measure, you can send those books on now if'n you want.