I feel the need, the need to read

I love to read.

I have always loved to read. When I was a kid, I read all, and I mean all, the time. I read when I ate. I read before I went to bed and after I went to bed. I read while I was watching television. I likely remain the only student in the history of Baker Elementary to get recess detention as a punishment for reading (apparently hiding my Babysitter's Club series #8 book, Boy Crazy Stacy, under my math book and reading while I was supposed to be working was not okay.)(Yes, I know I'm a freak for remembering what book it was that got me in trouble in the 6th grade. It was traumatic--I had never gotten detention before.). I read any time I rode anywhere in a car. The unfortunate result of that was that when I turned 16 and got my driver's license I had no idea how to get ANYWHERE because I never paid attention when I was a passenger. I got teased a lot for that.

I majored in English in college. I enjoyed it, though it annoyed me to have to tear apart a book to try to find what an author was "really" trying to say. I always wanted to meet one of these authors and have them tell me that they just thought it was a cool story, so they wrote it.

Few things in life delight me more than a really good book. That's why it is such a BUMMER that I have not read a really good book in a really long time. I can't even use the excuse that I don't have enough time--I could definitely squeeze some reading into my day, though it would cut into my Spider Solitaire time. The problem is that books are EXPENSIVE. Well, you say! Just go to the library, you silly girl! I do. I have. About a million times. The problem is, the library just throws all the fiction books into one giant section. At Barnes and Noble, I can go to their featured books table and instantly find 10 books I want to read. At the library, it takes me an hour to peer my way through one aisle, sifting through the Westerns and Romances to find the good stuff. Who has the time for that? And inevitably the book I want is in hardback, and I am way too clumsy to read hardbacks. So, most of the time I am without a book to read.

I don't mean to imply that I never read. I get People Magazine in my mailbox every Friday, and it is usually devoured before I go to bed that night. We also get Reader's Digest, and I make pretty quick work of it too. (Mock not--there's some good stuff in there, and the funny stories people send in are great.) (Okay, I just read that last sentence. Go ahead and mock.) Also the newspaper semi-regularly. And of course, there are the legions of books I read with the kids. Why, just last night we read:

Skippyjon Jones in Outer Spice
Goldalicious
Hippos Go Berserk
The Care and Feeding of Rabbits (no, we don't have a rabbit and we aren't getting one. Ethan wanted to know why rabbits eat carrots, and his sister got him the book at the library. It did not answer his question.)

I have to fix this problem! I need grown up books to read. I think what I need to do is make a list of books I'd like to read and take it to the library--maybe if there are enough on the list I can find a few in paperback. I'd love to hear your suggestions.

Because it seems appropriate, here's a list of some of my favorite books:

Time Traveler's Wife (#1. If I could only read one book for the rest of my life, this would be it.)
Poisonwood Bible
Memoirs of a Geisha
Kite Runner
A Thousand Splendid Suns
Anything by John Irving; A Prayer for Owen Meany is genius
The Devil in the White City
The Handmaid's Tale
All 3 Stieg Larsson books
Anything by Edward Rutherfurd; New York is my favorite
The Harry Potter series
Velvet Elvis (I'm not usually a nonfiction fan, but this book changed the way I view my faith)

Okay! What am I missing out on? What do I need to read RIGHT NOW? And if you own it, can I borrow it?