**Book

There is one love affair that I’ve maintained since my youth. Through numerous relationships, the headaches and ecstasy of wandering the globe, a satisfactory career, a short stint as a professional singer, and the typical highs and lows of life, I have been infatuated with and lusted after books.I know, I know … It’s incredibly corny to say that nothing moves my passions like the written word. Yet, it is the truth.There are any number of things I adore; women, music, beer, sex, football, scotch, a perfectly grilled steak, a good argument, it’s a fairly long list.But nothing has as prominent a place, or has been my constant companion as selflessly or with as little judgment as my collection of bound and printed pages.I should blame it on my father. He’s been a bookman for as long as I’ve known him. But as a child, I found most of the books he sold boring. They were ALL about religion, and I love a great thriller sometimes.Perhaps mom should take some of the fall for this passion. She’s a teacher, and taught me the eternally useful art of sounding out letters until they forced my mouth to say words that I could use to convey or comprehend ideas that could take over the conscious and unseeable places in my brain simultaneously with an idea so powerful that it consumed my every waking thought and sleeping vision.But that was just words. The book thing is bigger.I love the smell of new books. People describe the scent of money, and identify it as something that excites their passions. I can’t smell money. Some days I wish I could.Ahh, but the scintillating scent of fresh ink on new paper, hot off the press, letting me slide my fingers up its spine and caress its leaves. That, dear reader, is bliss to me.I adore the slippery smooth Mylar of a hardback, and the slutty carefree ways of a fresh paperback that will open wide for me, let me consume her, and not care that I’ll toss her to the side when she has sated my curiosity.There is the incredible climax of having the tease satisfied by seeing the first line of a tome I’ve anticipated for a span of time. J. K. Rowling, you move me.There is the utter satisfaction of closing a book for the last time, and the indescribable loss of having to destroy a book.And books force me into the light, refusing to give up their secrets unless I care enough to find an illuminated place, even under the covers where a flashlight is my sun.Their words cajole, and challenge, and inform, and critique me.They hide secrets for millennia and reveal them without my having to ask out loud.They tell of things I’ve never imagined, and paint pictures I can only see when I close my eyes.They accompany me in dark times, and wait with me when the world won’t let me be first in line.They frighten and amuse me. They make me laugh, then cry, then laugh again.They take me to places no man has been, and bring me home safely.You may have heard me rant and rave about the injustices of man against man, and nature against man. I abhor them. But I would personally try, judge, and execute the barbarians who destroyed the Library of Alexandria for base crimes against humanity.There is this quest to find a way to replace books with computer the computer slate. This mythical device will allow users to store millions of pages on a hard-drive, an recall them on a single page-like device.
Blasphemy.I want to share some titles with you. I don't care what, if anything, you choose to do with them. I do this for me, and because a good book is to be consumed, digested, and then shared.The Incarnations of Immortality, seven volumes by Piers Anthony that allow you to see a God and Satan you’ve always wondered aboutHoly Blood, Holy Grail, the REAL DaVinci Code by Baigent, Lincoln, and LeeMemnoch the Devil, Anne Rice’s successful capture of what filmmakers were TRYING to say when they produced the Devil’s AdvocateThe Children, David Halberstam puts the Civil Rights struggle in a light that makes me ashamed of how little I’ve done to make the world a better placeBehold A Pale Horse, William Cooper makes me wish I had a tinfoil hatThe Alienist, Caleb Carr shows me the New York I never saw, from a time and place before I was bornShowing My Color, Clarence Page writes the thoughts I never thought to writeEaters of the Dead, Michael Crichton turns Beowulf into a book you don’t need a professor for Harry Potter, J. K. Rowling creates the most complete and engaging alternate universe in writing since Tolkien retired his pen and closed his eyes at the end of his journey On Writing, Stephen King teaches a class to aspiring writers that utterly defeats the childish premise that you don’t NEED to learn grammar, and proper usageShogun, the James Clavell book I wish my President would read for a better comprehension of just how dichotomous two cultures can be, and how useful it is for ME to learn about YOUTuesdays with Morrie, Mitch Albom writes the first self-help book to make you actually want to hug your parents and children, without ever saying how much you suck as a person This list could be infinite, but I choose to stop.A book beckons me.

(2 Oct 06)