Too Many Books Isn't Enough.

"I really think you need to let this go," said Steve, and after thinking about it, I've come to the conclusion that no, I will not let it go. If you are proud of the fact that you refuse to read, then I am proud of the fact that I think you're an ass.

Last month I gave a toy party, and brought some of my better-selling books along. I had just started to give my "here's why I think you should buy this book" spiel to the group of a dozen women, when one spoke up, with the confidence one has when one is the center of the universe, "Don't show me any books! I don't read. I'm not going to do anything that involves reading, so don't waste my time."*

"I hate you," my subconscious spoke quickly and clearly, and probably showed up on my face for a brief moment before my frontal lobes could mask it with the appropriately smooth, unruffled facial expression of a professional ass-kisser.

"Well, I'll just tell the group anyway, in case there might be a reader here."

She snorted and rolled her eyes, and my subconscious spoke up again: I told you so. I hate her. I was right.

If you don't read, how do you think? Through tv? Through gossip? If you don't read, how can I possibly relate to you? If you don't have a library, no matter how small, or a book splayed face down on your coffee table, how will I be able to see your brain?

In Jane Austen's books, one of the first things the women asked of each other, when gossiping about an eligible gentleman, was how big his library was. Of course, this was important, and not just as a show of wealth and the ability to provide financial security. Reading is travel for the freedom-restricted. When you are a child, or broke, or a woman who through law or societal restriction is cloistered (to a certain extent like Austen's characters or a more total extent as in Azar Nafisi's Reading Lolita in Tehran) books are what get you out in the world, show you around, take you to all the good party spots that haven't been overrun with tourists. Good books envelop you totally, not letting you up for air until they're certain you've heard everything they have to say. When they leave you, they close up some of your heart and mind in their pages and you have no choice but to keep them safe on your shelf.

I don't remember a time when I didn't know how to read, and I don't remember a time when I didn't want to know What Happened Next, whether Mrs. Andrews was reading us Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH or whether I was systematically plowing my way through the Hardy Boys Mystery Series.**

I had a Hardy Boys book with me the day my mother took me on a shopping trip to the outlet malls in North Carolina with her friend, a sweet-faced woman named Ruth and Ruth's son Craig, who was twelve to my eleven and the object of my affections.

All my crushes were hopeless crushes, because I was not a beautiful child. I was not even a tolerably attractive child. I was, in a word, ugly. And don't think I didn't find it troublesome to worry that I'd never need a bra, or have straight teeth, or be allowed to wear makeup or leave the house without my mother. But maybe on this trip Craig would see past that big pile of ugly and recognize me for my impeccable taste in books. See? It's Joe and Frank! Not Nancy! It's boys, and that's better than girl stuff, right?

Here we were, curving through the Appalachians together in the backseat of my mother's car, just the two of us. Surely in the three hours up and again in the three hours back, we'd be able to bond.

I noticed that he had forgotten to bring a book. To prove the purity and intensity of my love, I would...yes, I would offer him mine. Maybe even to keep. Maybe.

On the drive up he spoke only in disinterested grunts. Maybe that was my fault. I should have be more charming, funnier maybe, with better clothes and hair. While I searched for just the right thing to say, he finally spoke:

"Why are you reading?" he asked, in a tone that put reading on par with booger-eating.

My mind darted around. Finally, a question I could answer! Although, somewhere inside a warning bell was set off.

"It....beats being bored?" I asked.

"Hah!" he scoffed. "More like 'read a book and be bored.'"

Here's my diary entry from that night:

June 21st, 1981

Went to NC with Craig and his mom. I used to wish Craig was my boyfriend but I don't think I wish that anymore.

Like most little girls of my day, I was schooled in the gender appropriate social lessons: What Boys Think, How Can I Mold Myself In Ways That Make Me Acceptable to What Boys Think, and What Do Boys Think so I Will Know What to Think. Until that day, I never questioned the importance of this lesson.

But this was the day I realized that there was, in fact, a line that I was not willing to cross. And that sometimes, What Boys Think are really, really stupid thoughts. Like the thought that reading is useless. Craig, I do not care how cute you are or how brightly the white of your kneesocks glows against the brown of your legs or how nicely your hair falls in those soft feathery wings that angels blew dry: If you do not like to read then I do not care what you think.

Now, if you hate reading, this line of thought may strike you as elitist, or stuck-up, or rude, but I'm not too worried about it. I mean, it's not like you're ever going to read this, anyway.
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*It was this one, which only loosely fits the definition of "book." Embarrassing that this is what I feel compelled to go to bat for. I mean, it's fun and all, but it isn't Voltaire.

**Why the Hardy Boys and not Nancy Drew? Two words: Shaun Cassidy.