A-Z Blogging Challenge: Letter B

Today is Day 2 of the A-Z Blogging Challenge. Every day in April (except Sundays) I will be doing posts for each letter of the alphabet. It is my plan to make my posts reading &/or book-related. April 2nd is brought to you by the Letter B.

B is for bibliophile, bibliomania, biblioholic. Any of those. From the interwebs: A bibliophile is someone who loves books. Commonly known as a bookworm; a bibliophile may be, but is not necessarily a collector of books. (Oh yeah. That would be me.) Bibliomania describes the condition of someone who takes their love of books to the extreme--collecting books to the point where social relations or health are damaged, and the mere fact that the object is a book is sufficient for it to be collected and loved. (That's not me. Not quite. I don't think so, anyway....) And a biblioholic has the habitual longing to purchase, read, store, admire and collect books in excess. (I suppose I do have to confess to that.) Fortunately, this is a fairly benign form of madness.....it doesn't hurt anything--except my bank account.

I've been a bibliophile since second grade. Oh, I didn't know that's what it was called. But I loved books, I knew that. My mom gave me her set of 1950s Nancy Drew books and I was off and running. Then when I discovered Mason's Rare and Used Bookstore downtown, I was in heaven. Every Friday, I took my allowance and wandered the aisles...mainly the mysteries and science fiction...looking for buried treasure. I always came home with a stack. And now I cannot pass a used bookstore without going in. Somewhere, lurking on the shelves, might be that one book that been on my list forever. I've just got to go in and see.

[The picture is The Bookworm 1850 by Carl Spitzweg.]