And now for a moving story about: books.

I'd like to tell you that I've never met a book I haven't liked. However, that's not ennnnnnnnntirely true. Off the top of my head I can tell you that I hated "Phantom of the Opera," I strongly disliked most things by Jane Austin (yawn) and I most certainly pick Margaret Lawerence over Margaret Atwood. The problem is that I'm loyal, loyal to a fault in fact hence my difficulties in leaving even hard situations. This loyalty extends not only to relationships but to all books and most movies; even the bad ones. What I mean is that I even if they are truly awful I must see them through to the bitter end. Someone once tried to convince me that life was too short to be stuck with a bad book. Give it a few pages and then move on if it's not good. Yeaaaaaaaah but? Wouldn't that be betraying the fictional characters? Isn't not completing something a sin? Besides, surely the book will get better right? (please God!). So basically since I don't dislike any books it's fair to say that I like them all.

I do not, however, like moving books. I've mentioned before that my family has moved a lot in the last few years. Like every year in the past 6, sometimes more than once a year and that doesn't count my pre-marital treks to Asia....... Finding English books in Asia is a whole different story for a different day. But English books in Asia is part of this story because I did lug my favorites with me. Then I lugged them back home. Lugged them through a move at home; then put them in the mail and let the postman lug them down here to the US. Like I said, I've lugged them to and from 6 or 7 houses down here. Sometimes they haven't even gotten unpacked before it's time to go again and often the same moving box does more than one move. All that work and that's just for MY books.

My huggyband was a clergy person in a former life (no! not THAT kind of former life, just the life he lead BC (before Cass) say 7 years ago.) Apparently part of being a clergy person involves having a decorative library. Decorative because we have 4 floor to ceiling bookcases full of books that I have never seen the man read. In fact, in 6 years of marriage I have never seen the man read 1 dang book! But I sure have packed them. Again, and again. It's almost become a tradition in my family that at some point in every "fliting" (the British word for move. As in "A Saturday flit is never a long sit" I'll tell you that story sometime.) I will call my mom and wail "I HATE MOVING HUGGYBANDS $#%&** RELIGIOUS BOOKS!!!!!!!! (As if cursing them makes them easier to lift. Isn't everything easier to lift if you curse it first?) No amount of pleading or making him pack them up himself, or pointing out that he has NEVER, EVER opened the books, makes the man want to get rid of any. He insists on moving them from house to house. Have I mentioned that in all those moves we've never once had professional movers? Except for the very rare occasion when we have managed to bribe friends and family to help, it has been Huggyband and I who have done all of the packing.

And you know what I learned from all that packing? BOOKS ARE HEAVY! Which is why I may be loyal to the plot and characters of a book but not the actual book itself. I downsize, frequently and often and especially if I'm sensing a move is in the air. WHICH IT IS NOT I AM REFUSING TO MOVE EVER, EVER, EVER AGAIN! So books are easy come easy go for me. Much like my kids toys that eventually return to the thrift shop from which they came (good grief I just made books and toys sound like spawning salmon!). I think of the 25 cents for a book or 29 cents for a rescue hero as a "rental fee: " the cost to use something that I'll eventually return. Occasionally there are books that don't get returned but like I said that's pretty rare.

There are a few books that I have kept for sentimental reasons. Books that will become heirlooms or that tell the story of me. Books like the copy of "Tarzan" that has an inscription with my grandfather's signature. There's a well worn and highlighted copy of "Motherless Daughters." A couple books on women travelling alone; some Judy Blume books on puberty. There are a few Canadian social studies textbooks and a few medical sociology ones as well.

The textbook that is obviously absent although no less loved is "The Complete Works of William Shakespeare." Technically it IS present, but only in it's $9.99 softcover version not the $100 Cadillac version as a college professor told me I'd need. My Yugo version of Will has done me very well over the years as has the Cadillac version done one of my friends. In fact this friend insists she uses hers every day: to fix a broken table leg with. Besides we're talking about a guy who's been dead for 394 years (yes Lisa I did have to look that up and then use a calculator to figure it out: English major YOU do the math!); it's not like he's going to write a new edition........

Other books that have made the "cut" or in my case more the "pack" include: Heidi, Gulliver's Travels, The Red Tent, The Robe, This Present Darkness and Piercing the Darkness. There are a few Chicken Soup for the Soul books. I had briefly thought of collecting them but they are quite literally a dime a dozen so I kept a few favorites and donated the rest. If I see something interesting I'll pick it up. There are cookbooks of course which is another story, so is the collection of Christmas books and some very old Dr. Seuss.

The good news is that Little Miss Teen has also developed a love for reading. The bad news is that she collects books and like her daddy she rarely gets rid of them. I have packed and unpacked countless boxes of "Boxcar Children" books for her. However the very best news came this Christmas when Little Miss Teen received a Kindle!

From now on there's a new rule in my house: you are welcome to accumulate as many books as you want, as long as they are E-books!