The Books on My Nightstand

Every so often, I visit a bookstore and buy an armful of books. Maybe there’s a sale going on. Maybe I have a coupon. Maybe I’ve found a hole in the wall with a great selection and simply can’t help myself. However it happens, I buy more than I can read before the next bookstore trip, or fortuitous garage sale or estate sale find (I’m always looking for books for my Etsy shop but, well, some of them don’t ever get listed).

These books pile up on me. Especially when I go through periods, like I have lately, of not reading. It just seems like there’s never enough time. And reading is so passive–if I’m going to do something during the day that takes attention away from my kids, it feels like it should be productive. In the evenings, I want to spend time with my husband. For some reason, he gets a little offended if I blow him off for a book. Go figure. I guess that’s what happens when you marry a non-bookworm.

But I always come back to reading. I have to make time for it–it’s a part of me. And if my kids don’t like me stealing a half an hour a day to read a book, well, they can lump it. (Seriously: there are times when they want me sitting near them but I’m not allowed to play, and if I take out a book or my phone or a notebook it’s tantrum time, baby. And/or they steal the thing that’s taking my attention and make me insane.) I’ve got to get back to those books. I will get back to them. Soon. I hope.

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Talking As Fast As You Wish: Behind the Scenes of My Childhood and Adolescence

I can’t recall the first time I ever saw The Princess Bride; it seems I was born knowing it, though of course that’s impossible since it began filming a couple of months before my second birthday. But once I became conscious of movies, this was the movie. The Man in Black was likely my first crush, and Cary Elwes was definitely one of the first celebrities whose name I knew.

Because of my devotion to the film, I was eager to read a book about it. I was also terrified. When a piece of pop culture affects you emotionally, it can be difficult to see it pulled apart. You don’t want to know that the actors all hated each other, that the director was awful, et cetera.