License to Librarian

You know I have a ton of books, right? If you didn’t, let me tell you, I have a ton of books.

My parents have a ton and a half of books. But theirs are still boxed up in storage, so it’s been my self-imposed mission to pick and choose books for them to read.

It’s fun. You know how in books and movies there’s always that cool librarian who knows just the book to give the protagonist? That’s me now. Terribly entertaining.

On top of that, a friend of mine started a local Facebook book swap group.

My pal posted up some classics for trade, and I needed to get War and Peace, because any book jjiraffe recommends is going on my list. He dropped it off and told Ian for me to just pick one out for him so he’d likely get something he wouldn’t have chosen for himself. Smart guy.

I chose We Need to Talk about Kevin, and Ian chose Snow Crash. Both excellent books, but I couldn’t find the one I had in mind. I suppose it’s just as well I didn’t, because then I’d have had to read it first, and I’ve lost track of how many books I’m currently reading. It’s a few.

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It’s cool, though, picking and choosing who gets to read what. Because no matter what I thought of the book, no one else is going to have exactly the same reaction to it as I did. Even a single sentence can bring this about, as I learned after a certain Listserve email. Thanks for that, William, if you’re still reading along.

But I don’t really talk about books with anyone other than Ian, so I don’t know why this is so enjoyable. It just is.

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