Bibliomania

As a Bibliomaniac, Saturday was a great adventure for me. We started a tradition in my family that rather than celebrate our birthday for a solitary day, we get entire birthday weeks. Saturday was the last of my birthday week and celebration of turning forty-seven. To borrow and old saying—it went out with a bang!

If you don’t like books and don’t like reading, then you probably won’t enjoy reading this I finally made the thirty minute trip to the Dallas, TX Half Price Books store! I am a big fan of Half Price Books, and have wanted to go to this one for quite some time. It is huge and is made even better by its accompanying Black Forest Café where you can enjoy coffee, tea, sandwiches, and a variety of sweets. What can be more perfect than a bookstore, books in hand and a hot—or iced as was the case, latte! Oops, did I fail to mention the comfy chairs?!

I was in my element! Because I savor the entire experience of shopping for books, meandering down most every isle, my husband and son, age 6, knew they needed a back-up plan while I shopped. After a bit of browsing, they headed to the nearby Dave and Busters to play some games and then visited Hobbytown USA. They were blown away by the latter as evidenced by the constant chatter all the way home over details of the store’s merchandise and cool displays. As of today, we are planning a repeat trip to a Hobbytown USA that is just up the street from us (who would have guessed—yay MapQuest)!

But back to me--the bibliomaniac, celebrating my birthday. I spent four hours perusing isles and looking through books. Prior to leaving I reorganized my iPhone list of books that I wanted. I typed it out in alphabetical order by author’s last name. I had four pages. To be extra certain, I took pictures of my present collection of books with my iPhone so that I could zoom in and check the books I already own just in case I came across something that I couldn’t recall having bought already. Are you starting to understand bibliomania a bit better?

(below: the cute journals I found--I especially love the big hair!)
After picking up two adorable journals (above), I headed to the Christian literature section. My favorite. I started at the ‘As’ and headed to the ‘Zs’. I was pleased to find several of the books from my list along with a few others. Next it was to the Psychology and self-help sections to pick up a couple more. And lastly I headed to the Literature section. I decided to go ahead and buy a couple pieces of fiction this go ‘round. I normally don’t buy fiction. I save that for library check-outs. But, now and again I come across an author I like enough to actually purchase the books with the intent to read them over and again.

In between the lovely browsing, I had an iced latte on two separate occasions and made two related trips to the bathroom. Naturally, there was a huge clearance section near the bathroom which I just simply had to browse. Lucky for me because

I found two great books just waiting for a home!


Above top: two bargain books
below: Lisa See--one of the fiction writers that I really enjoy.

All in all, I ended up with nineteen new books! New to me anyway—slightly used may be more accurate. I attempted to share my bliss with my husband and son, but they seemed to think my books purchases paled in comparison to their adventure to the hobby store and the new Terminator game at Dave and Busters. Oh, well! To each his own! I knew a few people on Facebook that would be thrilled with the news because they can appreciate books for the treasures they are!

(above: son's artwork at Macaroni Grill; he loves drawing on the table.)

Afterwards, as if I needed any more bliss, my family took me to a nearby Macaroni Grill. I ordered my all-time favorite make-your-own-pasta-dish. I had the whole wheat penne pasta with pesto sauce, roasted garlic, sun dried tomatoes, and fresh spinach. Yum! Prior to my main course, I got to try the new Mediterranean vinaigrette on my garden salad. It was truly amazing (I need to learn to make one like that!)

Heading home, listening to the details of my husband and son’s adventures, I was anticipating going through my new books, one by one, and reliving the experience of having discovered them there on the shelf. It was all I could do to listen to the conversation!

Presently the collection is sitting on the ottoman footstool waiting for me to make room for them on one of my many bookshelves. My husband reminds me that we are out of space on the shelves for books as if that is a deterrent to buying more books. I tell him that you can never have too many books and that stacks of books here and there look just fine!

I just realized that I have purchased 47 books from the Half Price Books store in a month’s time. OK, but before you judge me—let me just say that I bought them all at incredible prices and with percentage off coupons.

Happy end of a birthday to me….until next year!

I’m off to read a book!

Bib-li-o-ma-ni-a [bib-lee-oh-mey-nee-uh, -meyn-yuh]

--noun

Excessive fondness for acquiring and possessing books. (dictionary.com)

--or—

An exaggerated preoccupation with the acquisition and ownership of books.

(The American Heritage Dictionary)