About two weeks ago I started my summer reading extravaganza. It’s where I choose books (and right now I have a lot that I want to read so it was very tough) and make a schedule of when I would read which book. It might sound weird, but it’s a good way to keep me on track with my reading. I feel if I don’t have a reading goal set out for the day there’s a big possibility that reading will not happen, and the 30 or so books on my “to read” shelf will just sit there longer. Of course, this gets complicated when I start reading a series that I don’t have all the books to (i.e. George R.R. Martin’s “A Game of Thrones”). But my decision to that is that I will just fix my reading list when I acquire the book to fit so I can read it sooner rather than later (as in December which is where my reading list has stopped).

One of my favorite things about this list this year is that I can make it go all the way to December because I have no where to go at the end of August. I guess graduating from college has its upsides (because being thrown into the world of work for the rest of your life surely isn’t one of them).

I love to read, and wish I could have read more during those times when I was in school. But those 18 credits every semester really made it hard to do that. I also have a tendency to forget how much I really like reading until I’m immersed in the middle of a book. This is the realization that came upon me yesterday.

I had just finished up reading Big Girl Small by Rachel DeWoskin, and I was speeding through Beastly by Alex Flinn when it hit me just how much I love reading. Every day that I have my internship I come home and instead of sitting in front of the TV to unwind, I go up to my room, sit on my bed, and read. The days I don’t have the internship, I try to spend a good chunk of my day writing and the other chunk reading.

Now I’m not saying I NEVER watch TV. Cause that’s just a lie. When I was away at school I would watch TV with my roommate, and at home I’ll watch TV while I have lunch or dinner. I find it hard to read and eat at the same time, otherwise I would probably read during lunch. But I’ve come to find that I tend to only watch TV when someone else is watching TV. That’s how I got into all the shows that I watch: through other people. And there’s only one show that I will put aside time to actually watch: Being Human.

I don’t know what it is, but there’s something about books that makes them different from TV. Maybe it’s the whole “I can use my imagination” aspect, because I love using my imagination. Maybe it’s because I like to write, but then I know a lot of writers who watch a lot of TV, so that’s probably not it.

What I do know is that books are amazing. It makes me sad when I think that books may be obsolete soon. Yes, yes I know. The e-book will still be around, but there’s something different between just reading the text and actually holding the book, being able to smell the pages, make notes, etc. But for now they’re still around, and I never plan on getting rid of the books that I have. Years from now when people say “Books? what are those?” I want to be able to smile and know that I still have them to show my kids and grandkids and great grandkids, and pass the knowledge of the book on forever. Cause I will always have a special bond with my books.