I’m a book lover. I come from a family of book lovers. I married into a family of book lovers, and I’ve helped create four more.
We have books all over our house. Full shelves groan, piles grow beside the couch, tubs overflow with soft back, hard back, tiny ones fished out of cereal boxes, some so read and reread the covers have long since disappeared.
My then-teenaged cousins once teased my daddy because he mentioned something he’d read in Jack and Jill magazine. Daddy didn’t care if the magazine’s target audience was elementary school-aged children. He just loved a good story.
Several years ago, we gave my mother a complete set of The Little House series by Laura Ingalls Wilder, her favorite. During a February phone call, she mentioned reading The Long Winter, one of the middle books of that series. I chastised her with, “I thought you’d be farther along than that book by now.” She replied, “This is my second time through since December.”
My father-in-law reads Baldaccis and sends them to my husband and twin sons to enjoy. My sister-in-law reads as she eats breakfast and lunch. My nieces and nephews read voraciously, too.
Reluctantly, we’ve had to remind our sons to close their books at the dinner table. A friend commented about their reading instead of watching TV. They surprised her, choosing to books over NCIS or reruns of The Andy Griffith Show.
I can’t resist a used book sale and waited in line once—with my husband and one of my daughters—for 45 minutes to enter a former grocery-store-turned-used-book super center. I returned twice during the nine-day sale, grateful that the prices fell 50% mid-week.
We’ve stood in line for Harry Potter books. My daughters and I poured over the Jesus Calling devotional. We’ve shared the Hunger Games series, stealing laid-aside copies from each other when two of us were reading the same installment. We’ve enjoyed discussing the details of beloved stories just like members of the four book clubs I’ve participated in over the past fifteen years.
I’ve loved those book clubs, eagerly anticipating the meetings. Reading with my family, however, discussing story points, disagreeing on some parts, agreeing on others—that is a sweet gift. I’ve never thought of my family as a book club until writing this post, but it is. We don’t meet regularly, but oh, when we do! Fun, fun, fun.
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