Reading

I used to inhale books. I used to consume them with such a passion; nose stuck halfway through one, while a stack, ten high, teetered next to me. I kept paperbacks in my back pocket and hardcovers in my book bag. I read. I was a reader.

Now, not so much. Sure, I still have a stack sitting next to my bed. And I have a hard time passing a used book store, but I can no longer call myself a reader. It takes me months to finish just a few hundred pages. I read one, two pages at a time and get a little board. I no longer read at night. I'm content to fall asleep watching tv or, god help me, listening to podcasts.

I jump from book to book to magazine to newspaper all in the same hour. I can tell you the titles of the five or so books I'm reading right now, but not really much else. Don't ask me for names of the characters or plot points. I'll just stare back, unknowingly.

That was all true until I found out the Urbana Free Library sells books. Remember how I can't pass up a used book? Stuck in the corner, barely visible behind a famously bad hardcover about what I can only assume is a killer cat, sat Anthony Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential. My hungry eyes picked it out immediately.

It's been three days. I'm nearly finished. It's captured my attention and held it and I can hardly think of anything else.