Literary Personality

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I recently finished a book and went into my *library* to pick out a new one. I usually take great pleasure in this activity. I get to walk downstairs whenever I'm done with a book and peruse in my very miniature Barnes and Noble. [If only I could just recreate the smell]. The great span of bookshelves in the study provides me with a wonderful sense of accomplishment. This day, however, I felt a little introspective. And a little troubled. What does my collection of books say about me? Am I proud of what my books convey [my classics and non-fiction sections are growing to a respectable size]? Or a little embarrassed [Breaking Dawn anyone?]? Or a little defeated when I acknowledge how many books in my collection I've never read [like a gigantic leather-bound, gold-leafed complete works of Shakespeare that I own mainly because it looks pretty on my shelf]?

I worry about this because I'd like to consider myself to have somewhat of a classy, academic taste in books. I don't normally read chick-lit or mysteries. I refuse to participate in any book club that reads Nicholas Sparks or anything with an Oprah seal on the cover. I admire people who read authors that have never appeared on the NY Times Bestseller list or whose books were never reviewed in People magazine. [Much like I admire people who totally get Indie Rock.] But perhaps I admire these people because I'm not really as academic in my reading as I hoped. My book-snobbery is a ruse!

When having conversations with adults that are much more adult-like than me, I secretly fear that currently-reading-books will come up and at that point in time, I'll be reading some embarrassing chick-lit or mass market thriller, and I'll have to lie and say I'm reading Atlas Shrugged for the third time. This wouldn't entirely be a lie because I am on my third attempt to read Atlas Shrugged, I haven't removed my bookmark, it still moves along with the rapidity of swimming through a pool of freshly poured concrete. It was in my most recent stint with AS that I began to question my literary personality. I would spend an hour reading AS and find that I'd progressed about 2 pages and was not entirely sure why I was still reading. I thought I was smarter than this, I would tell myself. Am I really enjoying this book or am I reading it because I think it adds to my literary repertoire? Why am I having much more success, and let's just say it, FUN reading Bridget Jones' Diary? [Sidenote: the above picture best represents how I felt while reading AS]

In looking at my books the other night, I started to really contemplate my choices. Other than that I bought them for about 50 cents a piece, why do I own so many John Grisham books? Do I like Grisham that much? At one point in my life, I must have. Grisham was one of my first experiences with grown-up novels. I read my first one in my early teens and loved it and was subsequently responsible in part for my early interest in the law. Likewise with my Jason Bourne series and handful of Mary Higgins Clark. They don't fit with any other genre I own nor have I read either in years but I can recall the time in my life when I read them and why I loved them. As can be expected, my taste in books has changed. I do secretly hope that my Jonathan Safran Foer and Jhumpa Lahiri are more noticeable than my Charlaine Harris. But I'm realizing that I need to embrace the diversity instead of being apologetic.

There are quite a few books in my collection that I haven't read let alone remember even buying. Those will inevitably end up in the Goodwill/Used Bookstore box. But I've resolved that I will keep these older books that I haven't cracked open in years. Perhaps the key to identifying my literary personality is not what I want to portray as a reader, but what my reading journey has brought me to. While my collection of books may not be worthy of bequeathing to the Library of Congress when I die, it is a collection of me and the various roads of life that are reflected in each book.

I think I'm ready to admit that I'm not really the literary personality that I thought I was. I'm ready to recognize my History/Political Science collegiate background as nothing more than the cause for getting more answers right on Jeopardy. I'm ready to embrace the fact that I LOVE the Stephanie Plum series by Janet Evanovich [although I stopped at book 10 because they kinda started to suck]. I'm ready to remove the guise of a well-read academic. Do I really enjoy reading non-fiction? Only sparingly and on recommendation. I hate biographies. Political theorists make me want to punch someone in the face. And why do award-winning, best-selling novels always have to be soul-wrenchingly depressing? I don't care if the writing is brilliant, it only makes the depression that much more powerfully conveyed. Why try to refuse myself the type of reading that will make me happy all for the sake of appearing more grown up? And ya know what, listening to Harry Potter #7 on audio for the 3rd time makes me pretty darn happy.