Hush! This is a secret and I am not telling anybody that I am blogging again. I am also going to work on my writing again which is why I am beginning by blogging. I expect this to be boring and bad. But my topic today is reading.

My reading habit had become too lax. While cleaning the house recently, I noticed my piles of books, those piles that shift from here to there around the house but have not changed much over time for quite a few years and continue to collect dust. They are all good for me to read, edifying, but have failed to hold my attention and so they sit. Each has a bookmark sticking out of one end wherever I finally lost interest so totally I could never bring myself to open it again. If a good book lands on the pile, it isn't long before it's gone. With fall looming and silence in the house, I was suffering a terrible hunger to read. I knew that I need to devour books, fun to read books, books that are not good for me to read before I could feel mentally healthy. I took a trip to the library to solve the problem three days ago.

I felt right at home the minute I walked in the door. The carpet hasn't changed, the old sweet scent of books, of old paper and ink, of read text, was perfect perfume, an elixir for flagging spirits. I began by going directly to the front desk. In the back of my mind, a fear had begun to fester that they would kick me out if they saw how long it has been since I last checked out a book. It is time to confess that I prefer to own my own books, but books have become quite pricey of late. It turned out that my library card had expired one month and one day before I came back. It wasn't as bad as I had feared it would be and I needed a new card anyway because I'd lost my old one. A new card on my keyring and I was ready to find some books.

Fortunately, the fiction section is the first room beyond the lobby. History, though I love it, was off my list--too good for me, too edifying, too likely to collect dust. I began reading titles and immediately saw one I ought to read. Out of habit, my hand responded to the impulse, I reached for the top of the spine. But froze--do I need another good for me to read book that I will drag through? I managed to pull my hand off the top of the book and walk on. I needed a book that would grab me! I even managed to get all the way around to the other side of the first row of shelves, scanning titles and authors and muttering, "No, not that one," over and over, before I saw the first promising title--a book I hadn't read by an author with whom I had no previous acquaintance. Perfect!

What is more, this particular title concerned me. It is remarkably close to the working title of my WIP, slow progress. If you are a friend of mine, you may remember that title is, And Fair, Fierce Women, borrowed from a poem by Robert Burns. This book's title is Fair and Tender Ladies. Too close, too close. It fulfilled the requirement that the book must grab me. It grabbed me so fast that the cover was open and I was reading in less than a second. It is an older book, published in 1988 and I am stymied as to how I could have missed it in the past.

My search resumed and I went into the next room and began at the end of the fiction section. The next one that grabbed me was not so unfamiliar, I just don't remember reading this particular novel before. It is, A Gift of Sanctuary by Candace Robb, a medieval mystery, and if I am lucky, the library will have the whole series at some point. That's what I hate about libraries.

Then I did something that is totally out of character for me. I made myself leave. I did not continue until I had an armload. This is fortunate now that I am living alone and unemployed. With no interruptions and no schedule, I might be totally out of control if I have some books that aren't good for me to read. I am a confessed book devourer. I can resist going to the bathroom for hours when I am reading a gripping story.

I checked out, I went home and immediately began to read. I read until 4:00 AM. I resumed reading with my early afternoon coffee the next day. I read straight through, into the second day, until the last page had been turned. And then . . . and then I reread parts. Both were excellent, but especially Lee Smith's. I would be reading still had I picked up six books instead of only two. Besides, this means I get another whiff of library perfume and more wear on my new library card. This is always good for my spirit, to get out and go to either a book store or a library. This is where I come alive.