Introduction: Readaholic

For some reason, every year, there is something about the beginning of summer that takes me, a normally avid reader, over some unclear threshold into the world of what can only be called obsessive reading. I don't know why it happens, but it has been a consistent occurrence for as long as I can remember. The trend is clear all the way back to the summer in grade school (between 3rd and 4th or 4th and 5th grades) when I reached my goal of reading 10,000 pages and earned myself some absurd number of free Subway Kids Meals from the Wethersfield Public Library's summer reading program.

More recently, the memories are more pleasant and vaguely sensual. I remember sitting in the coffee shop across from BC reading, how it was too cold in the shop and way too hot outside, and how distinctly different the act of reading there was from the work that I did that summer moving furniture. The summer before last, I read a book a day for the weeks before camp started, waking up early to read before work, eating quickly to read something at lunch, and spending full evenings in the basket chair that Nicole and I acquired mod shopping. Last summer I read for hours in my room at TFA institute, and sometimes when I could grab a free moment during the school day. My reading felt like a little island in that world of stress and insanity and transition, and I plowed through books even though I shouldn’t have had time for any of them.

This summer seems no different, and as Memorial Day passes and the weather gets hot, I find myself again turning pages compulsively, reading a book every day or at least close to it. I can't stop myself. While in the winter I sometimes fall asleep before my head even hits the pillow (or in some cases, before I even think about the pillow, while sitting up and doing something else.) In the summer, sleep escapes me until I have read for a while. Sometimes I will not sleep for hours and hundreds of pages and not notice what is happening, leaving me sluggish in the morning when I intend to run, but no more likely to make it to sleep without reading the next night.

And I love it. It’s delicious and relaxing and exciting. I get involved in the stories and the ideas and want to read more and more: more by the same author, more on the same topic, more on some tangentially related topic that is mentioned casually in a novel as a side interest of one of the characters. More, more, more.

In the past, I have tried to write journal entries about the things that I read. I want to be the kind of reader that can keep it together to write notes about all the books that pass through my hands. I had claimed the beautiful leather journal that my mother got for me in Turkey for this purpose, thinking that I would want to keep my reading notes far longer than the random thoughts that repeat in my other, personal, less enduring journals.
But writing is painfully slow, and typing is blissfully fast. The difference, especially for me, is astronomical. I wrote almost all of the entry up to this point during a single six minute task run for one of my subjects. I couldn’t come close to that writing by hand. That combined with my compulsive editing, and my tendency to be long winded, and therefore to get hand craps, leaves me thinking that despite my potential desire to have these ideas bound in lovely Turkish leather, the reality is that to get them down at all I may have to accept a more electronic medium: hence the blog.

That and part of the reason that I want to write about the books as I read them is the fact that I would like to talk about them. I would like to hear if other readers agree with me, and get suggestions as to other books that I would like. I want my reading this summer to be a less self-centric and more communal process, at least as much as reading really can be.
I don’t delude myself into thinking that I am going to have some sort of cult blog following as I write this. That would be insane, and I don’t think that I am ready for a large audience, but the act of writing about the things that I read with the intent of ANY audience will inspire me to think about them that way, and perhaps one or two of you will have something to say back, which is always cool. And even if not, and it’s all for me, so what, I do lots of writing all for me.
So here we have it. Maggie reading her summer yet again, but this time, at least keeping track of it. And we’re off.

The book list will be perpetually updated. And I do mean perpetually. Let’s see how much a girl can read when she has to work and play ultimate and study in addition to just devouring pages. I think that it will still be more than I imagine.