Books for Sale

There's just something about a book... I was on my way home from dropping my daughter at a school play and my son and I ran across a book sale at a local library. I love looking through the boxes of old books for some treasured hardback that I can pick up for $1. We stayed about an hour and ended up leaving with 5 or 6 new books. I managed to find a couple of old volumes that I'd read in younger days and wanted for my library, as well as one or two books I'd heard about and were on my list to read.

I have a study in my house that's filled with books and has a comfortable chair with a good light. I guess a lot of people loose themselves in front of the TV, but I find a good book takes me farther than anything (except time in the woods). I become so involved that I go through a withdrawal as the book ends and I realize that the new friends that I care so much about are going to be gone soon.

Stephen King (I love his books!!!) once wrote that even the most compelling character that a writer creates is no more than a bag of bones, and that these people can't ever truly touch us the way real characters do in our lives. I must, respectfully, disagree with Mr. King. There are people in my life who have changed me and made me who I am and who I'm becoming, but there are so many others that just seem to fill space. A true friend, with the spark of sprirituality is a gift I will always cherish, but I also cherish seeing that spark in a character from a book. Maybe what I'm getting in touch with is the spirituality of Stephen King, or John Irving, or Ayn Rand, but what they give me is more real than anything I get from many of the empty characters that populate my life. As I sit here, waiting for summer to come and my travels to begin, I'll crack a good book and read by a warm light, and I'll thank the author for sharing some of their spirituality with me. I don't much care about movie stars or sports heroes, but there are a number of authors that I'd like to meet if for no other reason than to thank them and to tell them that they've made a diffierence.

If we can't be together, then open a good book. It's funny, but if you look hard enough, you'll see the best of us are all in there.