confessions of a book eater

my name is lanette and i eat books.  i don't know what it is, but the more i read, the faster i seem to go.  i'm not setting out to speed read and i have no need to go faster, it's just that books that used to last me a few days are now start-to-finish in an afternoon or less.

i've read 26 books since school let out, including 4 this week.  ("our endless numbered days" by claire fuller which i really did not care for:  alarmist father takes daughter to live in the woods telling her it's the end of the world and this is the only way they can survive. meh. "light of the world" a memoir by elizabeth alexander whose writing i found to be lovely. poetic.  "magonia" by maria headley:  a fantastical earth-sky young adult fiction read. imaginative. and "the sunlit night" by rebecca dinerstein about unlikely love on a remote norwegian island. cultural.)

yes, i taste and even devour books.  nestled between mismatched couch pillows, legs dangling...by fountains in between people-watching...on coffee shop porches measured by sips...in waiting rooms at dentist and medical offices...at car servicing lobbies...this is where my consumption occurs.  this is all mostly from the library, mind you, me gratefully chomping through titles almost faster than they can come in for free.  i even resell my own books in hopes of used bookstore credit for those few gems that simply must be owned, reread and loaned.

this is to say nothing of the morning i woke up, made my french press coffee as usual and opened a mystery thriller, thinking i'd just read a few chapters.  at 4:00 in the afternoon i was still in my favorite striped cotton pyjamas finishing compulsively "whodunnit", surrounded by cold coffee, an apple core and plates with crumbs i don't remember eating from; my own list of chores, exercise and daily tasks still undone. what were you thinking says the responsible adult within?!

guilt-assuaging book lover answers back:  remember when you would read like that as a young girl--legs propped up on a tree or bookshelf or on a sagging air mattress after a summer backyard campout--pouring through all of the nancy drew and hardy boys books in a row, begging your mom to take you back to the library until there weren't any more left in either series?  so yes, it's ok--at any age--to spend the better part of a day eating a good book.