Yea! Bookslut (a book and publishing news blog for those who love to read) now has an RSS feed. Catching up on all of the Bookslut news, I found a link to this essay on being addicted to books by Bookslut editor, Jessa Crispin. As a chronic book buyer and book borrower, I related completely. I rarely walk out of a bookstore or library empty-handed.
I think I inherited this trait from my mother. Last December my mother and I were driving from Florida to North Carolina, and we stopped at an outlet mall to eat and take a break. Most people go to outlet malls for bargain prices on Ralph Lauren clothes or Mikasa dinnerware; my mother and I ended up in a charity bookstore for over an hour. We had to reason with each other to put unncessary items back. The joke for the rest of the trip was imagining the reactions we would get when we told everyone that we went outlet shopping and only came home with books.
It is not just the thrill of acquisition for me, though. I really love to read; I cannot help but read anything that is placed in front of me. Recently, I accompanied my roommates to a talk by Zen teacher Jan Chozen Bays, and during the social hour after the talk, Chozen Roshi asked me about my work, etc. When I told her that I worked in a library, she asked, “So are you a compulsive reader, too?”
A compulsive reader, she explained, is someone who cannot stop reading. Chozen Roshi’s father was a librarian, and she grew up in a family of compulsive readers. Based on her experiences, Chozen Roshi described a compulsive reader as the person who reads the back of the cereal box each morning while she eats breakfast or all of the ads in the subway on the commute each day. It does not matter how many times she has read the same signs or information; the compulsive reader is simply compelled to read the printed word.
The worst torture for the compulsive reader is not being able to read. Few compulsive readers would willingly give up their reading habit. When I recently read the materials sent for the silent retreat I am going on at the end of June, I was momentarily panicked by the fact that participants are asked to refrain from reading or bringing reading materials with them. I guess I never considered the printed word read silently as being anything other than silent. Silly, I know, but true.
Perhaps in the absence of words, I will develop a clearer and more thoughtful understanding of and better appreciation for language, speech, and the written word when I return to the reading world. However, for now, I am content to continue mindlessly reading.