March 5, 2008

It's Raining Books

I like knowing there are books hanging out in the wings, waiting for me to read them, but lately things have gotten out of hand. I was just on Dot's blog, where she was highly recommending Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You (by Peter Cameron) and decided to look it up on my local library's online catalogue. Unfortunately, they don't carry it but I noticed that two of my holds - Eclipse (Stephenie Meyer) and Sparrow (Sherri L. Smith) had come up.

Usually this would be good news but I just picked up three other holds on the weekend - Burned (Ellen Hopkins), The Boy Book (E. Lockhart) and The Off Season (Catherine Murdock) - and I haven't started on any of them yet because I'm currently in the middle of Slam (Nick Hornby).

Obviously I've been a little too enthusiastic about putting books on hold lately and on top of that, last week I bought Breathe My Name (R.A. Nelson) and The Angel Collector (Bali Rai) and my dad bought me a copy of Shake Hands With The Devil (Lieutenant-General Romeo Dallaire). Could it be that I'm in need of an intervention? I mean, I don't even have anywhere to put these books. Seriously, our apartment is very compact. Soon I'll have to start getting rid of cutlery and plates to free up room for novels, which is the reason I've been taking so many books out of the library lately in the first place (lack of storage space!).

How will it at all end? I'm having visions of an overstacked bookshelf toppling over, trapping me underneath it (where obviously I will continue to read, read, read until paramedics show up).

Yes, things are well out of control but before I go back to pondering the numerous books I have to read, how I'll get through them all before the due dates start coming up and the numerous ways in which e-book readers could be a positive thing (if only their success wouldn't exponentially increase the likelihood of piracy), I really need to mention Before I Die by Jenny Downham. It took me weeks to dive into because I knew it would be rough watching sixteen year-old Tessa die. From the beginning it's clear that there's no other way out of this book. Her leukemia has progressed to a point there is no coming back from.

Well, Before I Die totally broke my heart. It's been a long time since a book made me feel this much and afterwards I wanted to buy everyone I know a copy and insist they read it. Yes, it will absolutely break your heart but there's so much life and hope in this book too, as much as I imagine any book could hold. If you think you might not have space for it on your already crowded bookshelf, you should give away some soup bowls, coffee mugs or whatever it takes because this is a novel you don't want to miss.

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