My bookshelf is currently quite...eclectic. Does it portray my taste in High Literature? The Classics? Theater? Poetry? Nope. Not at the moment. At the moment, all of those books are in boxes under my bed, and what is on my shelf is mostly a curious mix of nostalgia, brain candy, art products, contact lenses, and Tums.
I love reading. Always have. If there was ever an appropriate time to brag about school reading levels, I suppose this would be it. My first few years alive on this planet were pretty rough (drugs! scandal! Papa in prison! Coming to Jesus!), so by the time my mom got her life together as I was entering first grade, I didn't know how to read at all. I got sent to a special education class for remedial readers where I discovered my love of books. I excelled in that program and went into second grade at a 6th grade reading level, and by fourth grade I was reading at a 12th grade level. After that? It didn't really matter. Reading was a way of life to me. The first time I challenged myself to read 100 books in a year was my Junior year of college, and I hit 103 books. In 2019, I decided to try again. At least 2 books a week, I told myself, and I'll make it to 104.
At least being the keyword. What if I did more than two books a week?
That kind of thinking got me to 100 books in September, and when I went on a panic reading spree after I moved from L.A. to Charlotte to be closer to my family, I ended up hitting 154 books. 2020? I said "Hey...you take it easy, read when you feel like it, the number doesn't matter." Then I got hired at a library, and I hit 117 books without meaning too. Whoops.
As I was planning to move out of L.A. my mom made me a very kind offer.
"You can stay with us," she said.
"You can save up money for a couple of months while you look for a job and apartment," she said.
So I packed my books accordingly, just enough to last those two months (many of which I read within two weeks of arriving during the Great Panic Read). It was hard to adjust to the move and settle into a new life away from the familiarity of my four years in Los Angeles, but just as I started to feel like I was settling in, Covid-19 hit.
Now the books on my shelf are a strange collection of books from my 2019 marathon: a few series I was finishing, two babysitter's clubs books I had found on thriftbooks.com that sparked supreme nostalgia, and a couple of random Christmas books. Then of course there are the books I scavenged in 2020: gifts, thrifts store finds, a lone journey into Ollie’s Bargain Outlet, etc., as well as several books that I had vivid memories of reading (or wanting to read) as a child that I, as an adult woman who now knew the wonders of thriftbooks.com, realized I could buy.
And then came the Nancy Drews.
My philosophy towards reading is pretty much: If it sounds interesting, go for it. I am a big fan of fiction. I love stories in all forms, art, movies, TV, and I want my books to tell me stories as well. So while I don't drift into non-fiction very often, pretty much everything from Jane Austen and Victor Hugo to R.L. Stine is fair game.
NOW, 2019 was a big year for me, lots of books, lots of change (which is why I keep bringing it up), whereas 2020 just sort of happened and kept happening and just when you thought it couldn't happen anymore, it did. During my 2019 reading extravaganza, on weeks where I was reading longer or more difficult books, I would occasionally need to dedicate the weekends to a quick and easy read or two to keep up with my quota. In the beginning this took the form of R.L. Stine's Fear Street books, which were ALWAYS a tasty 80's/90's treat, but around the middle of the year, I remembered Nancy Drew Books existed.
And Thus Began My Quest.
It came to me, suddenly, right around the time that the new Nancy Drew movie with the girl who played Bev in IT came out, but shortly before the new CW show, that there was a seemingly limitless number of Nancy Drew books. We all know the yellow-covered classics, of course, but I also had dim memories of one with absurdly 90's cover art. This was a franchise that just kept giving. This was a well that would never run dry.
It was then I knew.
I was going to read every Nancy Drew book ever written.
I started working my way through the Nancy Drew books one Overdrive ebook at a time. It seems like someone else has the same idea as me, because more often than not I have to wait weeks between holds, but no matter. For the past two Christmases, I have requested Nancy Drew books, because not only must I read them, I have now decided I must have them as trophies. I will have a grand collection of Nancy Drew books that will be passed down to my yet unborn children and they will pass it on to...well, more likely they'll break it up and donate it to libraries and thrift stores but I'LL BE DEAD THEN so it won't really matter. I've read 48 so far. Only 600+ left to go.
Over the past 28 years I have become quite familiar with who I am as a person, which is why I developed this rule for buying books: I've already read them, and I'm willing to read them again. The thought of books sitting sad and alone on my shelf, unread...unloved...it breaks my heart. The only time I've broken those rules are for very inexpensive copies of books that I've wanted to read that I find at the thrift store, OR really gorgeous old books that I also found at the thrift stone that I am a little scared to read because I don't want to break them. (My oldest finds are a couple of books from 1886).
I hope to build up my personal collection to the point where I am simply forced to buy an old Victorian house with a turret that I will then convert into a home library. There will be no other option for me. Until then (or until I can save up enough money to move out of my family's house in this economy) my actual bookshelf is under my bed, safely tucked inside these cardboard boxes.
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