Our new city is beautiful. On top of that, there are more bookstores and libraries in the area than I ever could have hoped for. In addition to the expected Barnes & Noble or two, there are numerous privately owned bookshops that maintain the wonderful age-old tradition of “buying, selling & trading” new and used books. Heaven!
My addiction to reading and writing began at the tender age of three. It couldn’t be helped; I was mercilessly exposed to that kind of environment from the start. Everyone around me was doing it – my mother, my father, my sister – it was nearly impossible for me not to give in to the temptation and indulge as quickly as possible. As expected, once I got a taste of it, there was no turning back.
They started me off with picture books and nursery rhymes, but it didn’t take too long for me to move on to harder stuff such as fairy tales, legends and children’s literature. As I matured, practically no mainstream genre was left untouched. When reading words wasn’t enough, spicing things up by reading music worked for a while, too. But to this day, nothing can replace the allure of a collection of words on a blank background, be it on delicious paper or a flickering screen. (Okay, see you know I have a problem when I can’t resist calling paper ‘delicious’. NEVER leave me in a stationary store unattended. I may never find my way out.)
We’ve shipped 39 huge boxes of books from Germany to California. There’ll never be enough time to extend my library to the expansive size that I want it to be; despite every book added, it remains a book too few. Honestly, if I didn’t know better, I’d swear that the library has a life of it’s own. Similar to the musical The Little Shop of Horrors, my library is the plant, and I’m hapless Seymour, feeding my voracious library book after book – yet it’s clear that there will never be enough of them to satisfy it. During a recent visit to the British Library, I realized that I was irrationally jealous of the collection. The British Library, people. At that point, it occurred to me that my addiction is likely incurable.
Oh well.
During my last few months living in Germany, I’d been obsessively trolling bookstores in my city, desperate to fill unknown holes in my collection by discovering one more perfect treasured book after another. My enabling husband seemed to view my compulsion with a combination of amusement and exasperation.
On a more specific note, if you’re as addicted to German Literature as I am, hopefully you already know that you can get your fix for free by accessing the Gutenberg Project online. Hundreds of books in the original German or in English translation are available to us all worldwide! Bwah ha ha.
Gotta love those tech-savvy suppliers.
xoxo CountryEuroCityMouse
©2012-2013 CountryEuroCityMouse™. All rights reserved.
