Do you ever feel like you can only read certain books in certain times during the year? I’m pretty sure we all read books more than once, but when do you do so? When are you “in the mood” to reread a book? I don’t know about you guys, but there are some books that I can only read in summer. Or fall. Or winter. Or spring. For example, I only read The Christmas Shoes during winter. (For obvious reasons.) And although I absolutely adore the book, I can only bring myself to read Ella Enchanted (I think for those of you who read my blog regularly have heard this one mentioned a few times!) during the summer.

I read Mandy by Julie Andrews Edwards one summer a few years back; I think the summer before third or second grade, and loved it. I still read it over and over again, because it’s one of my favorite (and always will be!) books. It also brings memories – of summer. I distinctly remember reading it one summer because my mom and I went to the farmer’s market with my aunt and I remember sitting on the curb while my mom shopped around for organic tomatoes and what-not, and I was sipping some home made lemonade and reading Mandy. (I ended up leaving the book in my aunt’s car and didn’t get it back until the end of the summer!) My old copy of Mandy still smells of sunscreen and the beach! 😉

I love books of all kinds. I love historical fiction, and fairy tale retellings, and realistic fiction. I love books. There are some books that make me feel at home – books that bring back memories, or feelings. Like Mandy makes me thing of summer! And who knows? Maybe this summer I’ll read a book I absolutely LOVE and it will end up being a favorite of mine in a few years that makes me think of summer!

Do you have any “seasonal” books? What books bring back memories for you?

I started out on Cam Jansen mysteries and Kit Kittredge American Girl books. I remember sitting in a Barnes & Nobel with my mom one day and being so proud of myself because I finished a Cam Jansen in just one sitting (average about thirty pages and size 12 font.) But as you can imagine, being the reader that I am now, I was very excited to have accomplished such a thing in the first grade. Then in second/third grade came Kit Kittredge. My mom and I read the first two together every night before bed, and I loved it. I loved the pictures, I loved Kit (for those of you who know AG, Kit’s the aspiring reporter. A writer! How fitting!), and I especially loved reading about the Great Depression, in the 1930’s – a time I hadn’t learned about in school yet and was pretty much all new to me.

I’ve loved to read for as long as I can remember. I loved Patricia Palacco and Dr. Suess and David A. Adler (author of Cam Jansen, and a legendary best mystery writer even just several years ago as far as I was concerned), and Ann M. Martin (still one of my favorites!) and a bunch of other names I’ve forgotten over the years. And the reason is simple: as I outgrow books, I discover new ones. Isn’t that so cool?!

I’ve been through book phases, too – I’m pretty sure we all have, yes? Historical fiction. Nancy Drew’s. Fairy tale retellings. Been there, done that. And now I’m here – in my very wide yet still never far out of my box – my comfort zone – through all the books that I began with and all the books and corners Barnes & Noble held and my library directs me to and I find myself discovering new books and genres everyday… all thanks to the books I started off with that journeyed through here. And I’ll still keep finding new books and authors that I love! And I love that! 🙂

So what brought you to the genre of books you now read? What did you start out on? Have your tastes in books changed over the years, or have some books stuck with you for the past few years?

I absolutely, positively hate it when someone interrupts my reading. I know that they don’t mean to be rude, or annoy me… (most of the time!) But really, it feels as irritating as someone going “Hey, do you want to see a picture of my dog?” while you’re in the middle of a sentence. Like, really? Is a picture of a dog more important than what I was just saying? I know it’s really not the same; after all, interrupting someone while they’re talking shows lack of patience, and it’s just rude. It shows the person you weren’t paying attention, and it can hurt one’s feelings.

But if someone interrupts me while I’m reading, and it’s completely obvious that I have a book in front of my face, I just want to yell, “Umm, excuse me while I vent on you here, but does it look like I’m doing nothing when I’m reading? Did you seriously just disturb my wonderful, oh-so-wonderful bliss?” Ugh. It really… irks me. 😀

Now. It does not always irk me so much, because there is a such thing as polite book interrupters. They tap me on the shoulder, plaster a smile on their face, ask me how my book is. I smile back and say “Good,” and then, “It’s about this girl who travels back in time,” and they say “Oh, really. That reminds me…” and somehow find a way to connect it to what they were going to say. Or they don’t connect it. They just act interested and say they’ll read it sometime soon, and then move onto talking about their dogs. But people, it’s just not nice to interrupt a reader right away.  Didn’t your mothers ever teach you manners?!

So, how do you deal with people interrupting your reading?

Nobody likes an interrupter. While the mother of two is simply trying to have a conversation with her husband and her youngest is pulling at her shirt sleeve asking her for a juicebox, she feels as if she might explode on her sweet little child. While the teenager is sprawled out on her bed on the phone and her brother is yelling at her from the other room to bring him more toilet paper, she thinks she’s about to whop him upside the head. While the two little boys are having a thought provoking discussion about their favorite video game at the dinner table and their mother is dabbing at their mouths with a napkin and telling them they need to mind their manners and be neater, they both think they’re about to burp just to annoy her.

Everybody hates an interrupter, no matter who it is, what they’re talking about, or whether or not the interrupter is trying to interrupt. But when the interrupter is interrupting a good book… well, that’s a whole other story. You see, you must never interrupt a reader. It’s forbidden. All readers know the agony, annoyance, and utter explosion that bubbles up inside when the interrupter interrupts a good book. Interrupt me when I’m talking, interrupt me when I’m listening to my iPod, interrupt me when I’m doing homework. But never, ever, interrupt me when I’m in a book.

There’s no reason to do it. Imagine you’re sitting on your couch, minding your own business, and your great-aunt Ida interrupts to tell you she has a pair of old shoes of hers you might like. Dear Aunt Ida, I really, truly, don’t want your shoes, you think to yourself, but she babbles on, and you feel like smoke may spout from your ears. And right when the heroine in your book was about to defeat the antagonist of your story! ARGH! Or… picture yourself in a Starbucks and you’re sitting in an armchair, laptop on your lap, reading an online book and a man sits down next to you with a cup of steaming Caramel Frappe (Mm-mm… you make a mental note to try that), and he goes, “So… what are you doing?” You answer him you are reading, but he only sips his beverage and ask what it’s about. “Oh… a girl who becomes invisible,” you respond, and then tell him she’s right about to – oh, but you missed it! He only sniffs disdainfully and tells you about his job at the bank.

Annoying, right? There’s nothing like being interrupted in a middle of a book. Really, the best way to befriend a reader is to keep your mouth shut while they’re reading. And, in their own way, they’ll see you respect them and their escape from their reality. (Isn’t that what books are for, after all? The wonderful joys and fantasies of books are usually a whole lot better than the either boring or sometimes harsh realities of real life.) Besides, if this reader is even semi-aware of their surroundings, they’ll notice you and hopefully be polite enought to shut the book and make an effort to talk to you. And… if not, they’re probably just enjoying a really good book.

Do you even realize how huge of a discovery this is?!! Like, seriously. There is a perfume. That smells like BOOKS! My dad and I always joke that “Wouldn’t it be awesome if someone would make a perfume that smells like books?” AND NOW HERE IT IS! The name is even perfect – paper passion. I JUST LOVE IT!!

Mostly because THIS is my life…

BUT since it’s out of my budget… I know what I’ll put on my birthday list.

Cats are great company. Really. They cuddle, purr, play, and love.  They’re great listeners. Sometimes they even respond to you. (A recent conversation with my cat went like this: “Mittens! There you are!” … *entwines his tail around my feet* “Meow.” … “Were you napping? …. “Meeow.” … “Really?” … “Meow.” … “Are you sure?” … “Meoow.”) And when you’re reading, they just settle right up on your chest so you have to lift your arms above them to read the book. Every one of them has a personality of their own. And, most of all, they’re great sidekicks.

“Sidekicks?” You must be wondering. “How can a cat be a sidekick?” It’s simple, really – think about it. Lizzy had Mr. Whiskers. (Tinkerbell & The Great Fairy Rescue.) Ramona had Picky-Picky. (Ramona the Pest, Ramona & Beezuz… anyone?) Alice met the Cheshire Cat, did she not? And don’t forget good ol’ Miss Moppet – Beatrix Potter! The one who wrote “Peter Rabbit”? She wasn’t even just a sidekick, she was the main character! And, of course… the Cat in the Hat.

I think making a post about cats certainly has everything to do with being bookish. Not only are they there for you while reading a good book, or writing a story; they’re IN lots of books, too! I mean, come on. “Life of Pi”? Tiger! “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe”? Lion! Even in other parts of the cats family (yes, I know, I rabbit trail… or should I say cat trail! Aha… see what I did there??) cats are very very much in books. They make great characters, friends, companions, and sidekicks.

I hope I always have a cat in my life.

“Is ‘bookish’ really a word?” This was the first thing my dad asked me when I told him I wanted to start my very own book blog. “Well…” I hesitated. My word doc had always underlined the word in a red dotted line whenever I typed it out on my screen, so of course I wasn’t positive. (Spellcheck has spoiled me in its way of just right-clicking the misspelled word, and – voila – several suggestions for what you really meant.) So we had to look it up, and this is what we found…

I was bookish. I am bookish. If you look up “Emily” in the dictionary, bookish will be right next to my name. I am destined to be bookish for the rest of my long, bookish life. Words mean a great deal to me, and books are… well, books are an asset to life. Many people have got to feel the same way I do; surely I am not the only one who feels she is the very definition of ‘bookish,’ and bookish is the very definition of her. So, in order to share my love of books, and my very bookish life, I was determined to my get dad’s laptop and have him register my own domain name and share my bookish world with you. So this blog if for the bookish. I’ll post book reviews, and random ‘bookish’ things, and maybe even fragments of my own book.

Because (ugh, my teachers would get onto me for stating a sentence with ‘because’ …) BECAUSE – “what is a life of books if you only read what everyone else is reading? If you read what everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone is thinking.” (Hakuri Murakami) So I’ll share my favorite books, and perhaps you can share yours. I look forward to posting more of my bookish world!