Last night, I got a call from a friend shopping at Barnes and Noble~
Friend: What book should I buy? I want something good.
Me: Why are you asking me?
Friend getting irritated: Because YOU READ ALL THE TIME!
Me: Oh, ok, you MUST read YOU: THE OWNERS MANUAL! Stop and buy some aspirin on your way home.
Puzzled Friend: But that's non-fiction!
I think it is time we come clean about something. This something may send our brothers (Tod and Lee*) straight from their chairs to the floor. We don't really read books. Or, at least not the books everyone thinks we would read. Karen reads even less than I do (she also sleeps less). I've never read Harry Potter, The Da Vinci Code or anything by Louis Lamour. We do read new books by our favorite authors (John Irving, Aimee Bender, Jane Smiley , Louise Erdrich and there are more) and we cherish our many signed first editions. We buy books we want to read and we still want to read them as the stack grows taller and taller.
Almost every day a friend asks me if I've read whatever the book of the day is and when I say NO, they are shocked. It seems particularly shocking to people that I have not read one word written by David Sedaris.
Ok friends, here is the scoop: Yes, I do read ALL THE TIME, but I am reading magazines. Every magazine from Elle to Vanity Fair! The books I read are about ART, architecture, photography, health, TRAVEL, current events and some books you'd never be caught dead reading~ Dolly Parton's autobiography, for one. I think I may even have read that while listening to Celine Dion.
So, there it is. The cold truth. And yes, I really do buy a book based on its cover.
* WARNING: Tod swears a lot and Lee pisses off fan fiction writers.