Not too long ago, I had a friend over at my apartment for the first time. I gave her a quick tour of the apartment and left her to wander about for a few minutes while I prepared some tea. When I came out of the kitchen, I found her standing in my bedroom carefully scanning my bookshelf.
"I have this theory that you can find out a lot about a person by the kind of books they read," she told me without looking up.
"Really?" I asked, intrigued. "So what do my books say about me?"
She pondered this for a moment before answering:
"You're all about food, God and dating."
I had to laugh because her analysis was right on the money. I forgot all about her theory and our conversation until I ventured into the "Teen" section of Chapters yesterday to pick up a Christmas gift. I haven't been in the teen section of a bookstore in years - not because I think of myself as too old to read a book aimed at teenagers, but because my basket tends to be loaded up with novels before I can even step out of the "New Releases" section. The last time I made it to the teen's section, Babysitters' Club books were still bestsellers and Harry Potter was just a character in a novel, not a multi-million dollar franchise.
Needless to say, stepping into the teen section was quite a shock. Not a single Babysitters' Club book in sight ... it was just row after row after row of vampire novels with dark covers and titles written in red font made to look like blood. I grabbed the gift I was searching for and got the heck out of there 'cause, honestly, it creeped me out.
I'm not against vampire novels. I'm really not. I'll admit that I've never read any of the Twilight novels (or any other vampire series) so for all I know they are totally wholesome, uplifting wonderful works of literature. All I'm saying is that there was something sad about seeing the whole the teen section looking so dark and depressing and grotesque.
To cheer myself up, I picked up this book on my way out of Chapters ....
The Christmas Chronicles (aka the Autobiography of Santa Claus). The book begins like this: "You're right to believe in me. Oh I know it's hard sometimes. There are always people eager to tell you there isn't a Santa Claus, that I'm just a story made up long ago ..." I read that and was hooked, so this will be the book I read on the airplane next week.
Anybody else doing any reading over the holidays? And what are your thoughts on the whole "you are what you read" theory?
-xox-
I totally agree that you can tell a lot about a person by looking at their bookshelves! I'm always reading several books. I actually collect picture story books and chapter books from the independent reader and teen sections. (Can you tell I'm a teacher at heart?) I can hardly wait until my nieces and nephews arrive tomorrow for our get-together - I have all my Christmas story books under the extra tree so we can just sit and read after everyone's stuffed full of food and the gifts are opened!
ReplyDeletei hate to think what my selection of books would say about me!
ReplyDeletelove how accurate your friends guess was on you though!!
I would have to agree, I have lots of cookbooks and various novels some of which are historical romances in nature and then those that are drama/espionage. I enjoyed your post and thanks for the lovely comments you made about my JYC album!
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