Worn is Loved

I often talk about how long my reading list is and how many books I have on my shelf, waiting to be read. I’ll get to them eventually, I tell myself, as I go for an old standard.

There’s one series of books in my personal library that have seen the most love and attention. My parents would probably think it’s the Harry Potter series, and if you know me in real life, you would probably say that, too. I’m going to surprise you, though. It’s not the Harry Potter series, though they’ve seen a lot of love.

I’ve never had to REPLACE an entire book series because the books were falling apart due to how often I read them. But when I visited my husband’s office and saw a full set of The Lord of the Rings trilogy to replace my copies that were falling apart, I told him to grab them for his free books. Yes, he gets free books as part of his job. I know, I’m jealous!

I’m a little (ok, a lot) embarrassed to say that when I was in middle school, before I’d read the books, I thought Lord of the Flies was a sequel. Strangely, I decided I would read it before, despite thinking it was a sequel. I only made it a few pages in, weirded out by boys running around naked in the water and wondering why anyone would let people call him “Piggy.” I’ve never finished Lord of the Flies, but it’s on that long list of “to be read.”

I’ll let you in on a little secret: my senior year of high school, for the first couple months I would say I was doing my homework in my room, but really I was reading the series again. The magic never went away, and it still doesn’t. My grades eventually ratted me out, though the cause never was revealed. Sorry, Mom and Dad!

I knew I would need to get a new set in the summer of 2011. I was working in Massachusetts that summer for a theater company. I was having a terrible time with anxiety and depression that summer, and books were one of the only things that really helped. I was in a world I wasn’t used to, so I retreated to what I knew. Sadly, the book binding on my copies was breaking, and large chunks were coming out. I did what I could with a glue gun, but that’s not the best solution, nor the smartest.

I have my new copies, and I won’t lie, my fingers have been itching to break these copies in. I feel like I need to hit my book goal first, but once I’ve read 30 books this year, all bets are off!