The Infamous Purse Library (197 days!!)

Anyone who has ever hung out with me for any extended period of time knows exactly what my title to this entry means. I am required to carry around a very large purse. Not because I carry around makeup (I don't) or hair products (the hair tie on my wrist is about it), but because I have a problem. I have a book problem. More than once my mother has picked up my purse to hand to me and remarked "what do you have in there? A dead body?"

I have a book problem. When I move into my dorm every year I spend several afternoons staring at my bookshelves in my room, trying to pick the books that will travel with me to my new dorm. This process takes days, maybe even weeks (it should be noted that my mother now only lives a mere 30 minutes away, but the decision still takes forever). I spend more money on new books than I do on food or clothes and I treat my books the way some people treat their children. They are to be loved, protected and regularly used (I am a big fan of rereading a book, just because I loved it the first hundred times I read it). At any one time I am usually reading 3-5 books (a number which will easily double during the school semesters due to the massive amounts of readings my professors assign to me). And at any given moment it is impossible to predict which one of those 3-5 books I am in the process of reading will strike my fancy. My answer to this problem has been simple; just carry them all around.

So, one night while I was talking to my mom about my upcoming voyage with Semester at Sea she asked me "how will you handle being away from your books?"

I don't think she intended to send me spiraling into a frenzied combination of anxiety and depression, but that is what happened. I'm sure that I would miss my books more than I would miss any of my other of my worldly possessions. They are almost an extension of myself. How could I see the world without the books that have been my gateway into that world?

My room mate, Rebecca, and I have a mutual love for books (though she is, perhaps, less obsessive than I) and when she came back after Christmas vacation with a brand new Kindle in hand, I immediately mocked her electronic book impersonator. I have steadfastly denounce ereaders since they have become mainstream. Nothing, I repeat, nothing feels like holding a book between your hands, feeling the crisp paper under you fingertips. Ereaders don't have the smell that books have (glossy paged books and old library books have different smells than a new paperback. They are all different and all wonderful).

But the more I saw her with her Kindle, the more I began to wane in my dislike. The more I got to know her Kindle and what books were available to it, I started to fall for her Kindle.


So, dear readers, I now own a Kindle, so I can take all my favorite books around the world with me. This really was the only reason I broke down and bought it. I love it. I love that I can instantly buy books from my Kindle, I love the instant whisper delivery of the New York Times every morning, I love the fact that it weighs next to nothing. But mostly, I love that I can now carry 30 or 40 books in my purse without getting an arm workout.

Don't get me wrong, I will still buy books by the truck load, but for something like Semester at Sea, my new Kindle will really be a comfort and a friend in a world that will be changing around me daily. In this one way it will be nice to have a piece of home with me all around the world; my bookshelves.

(Pictured: Dot Bear, Chicki, and Sock Monkey settled in for a nice night of Kindle Reading on my bed)