Books

Hello, my name is Mariana and I'm a book hoarder. I love to read and I have books all over my condo. Most of them are on a shelf in my guest room but there are also a few stacks near the window, on the computer table and there are two books currently taking up room on my nightstand. I love the way they look on the shelf, haphazardly arranged in the corner. "The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde" is huge, its red fabric cover faded and fraying. I inherited it from Abuelo; it sits horizontally and anchors the bottom shelf. My Harry Potter collection neatly lines the third shelf starting at chambers and ending with horcruxes. "The Heath Anthology of American Literature Volume II" raggedly sits with a few post-its sticking out and dog-eared pages creating gaps. I love that one so much, it's from an American lit class I took sophomore year when I was captivated by ee cummings, forevermore my favorite poet. There is something so fantastic about seeing all my books together. I love them.
The book hoarder in me weeped on Christmas when Dan gave me an Amazon Kindle. It was a very welcome gift, I don't want to sound ungrateful, but I'm having trouble giving up real books. I've only downloaded one book on my Kindle and it's kind of weird to click a button to "turn" the page. I also find it strange to not be able to tell how much you have left to go. Usually I'll mark a stopping point which is most often the end of the chapter. With the Kindle you really can't tell where the chapter ends unless you click through the pages one by one to find out. I'm excited to take my Kindle to Australia (less than a month!) because it will take up so much less space in my bag. I figure if I really love a book I can always go buy the real thing and wedge it in between "The Prophet" and "She's Come Undone" but we'll see. I think this is what Dan was trying to avoid by buying me a Kindle:

I wouldn't mind!