Until I Find You

I was in Nashville, Tennesee last year. After the show I went to a Waffle House. I'm not proud of it, I was hungry. And I'm alone, I'm eating and I'm reading a book, right? Waitress walks over to me: " Hey, whatchoo readin' for?"

Isn't that the weirdest fucking question you've ever heard? Not what am I readING, but what am I reading *for*? Well, godammit, ya stumped me! Why do I read? Well... hmmm... I dunno... I guess I read for a lot of reasons, and the main one is so I don't end up being a fucking waffle waitress.

A bit of humor there, from Bill Hicks. I wasa thinking about books and what not, and I spent way to much time looking around for that little piece so I could qoute it here. So now my flow is slow and I gotta get it back while I remember what it was I wanted to type about.

There are a great many books in the world, far too many for anyone person to even make a decent dent in the stack. There are entire stores of books, and huge online warehouses and central shipping hubs, all stacked high with them. There are personal libraries and books on line and books on tape. There are book clubs and electronic books.

You can't listen to the radio or watch the TV without hearing about books. You can't sit darkly in a corner at a party without somone sauntering over and telling you about the book they are reading. People will travel around the whole country placing a bad book in hotel room night stands. Books Books Books.

Some weeks ago I was asked by a person how I pick what books I read. I admit that this question can strike a bit of terror in me, depending on who's asking it, because it can often be followed shortly there after by a gift, or god forbid an unsolicited loan of a sucker book. I'm going to call them that, because they come into your life and they suck from you your will to read. Ouch. Keep your sucker books to yourself folks.

What are sucker books? How can you define them?

You can't, that is why they are so hated and tricky. There is no formula or reason to it. You can't spot it. At one time in your life a book my be sent from heaven as God's direct dialogue to your brain, and that very same book at a different time is gods cement shoes sent to drown you in the ocean of Oprah's book club. Sometimes they are so sneaky you get half way through the thing before the true soul sucking I haven't picked up anything thicker than a periodical in a 3 weeks nature of the evil tomb presents itself to you.

So in this world of reading, a person must watch out for these things. A reader must be steadfast and vigilint in dealing with what they read. My first peice of reading advice is do not hesitate to just stop reading one book. Be a fickle lover of books. Make a date to the book prom and then take another book if you don't like the first one's jacket when you go to pick it up. It's not worth forcing. It's not worth finding yourself reaching for the stupid travel magazine that AAA auto club sends out just because your current book is being a boring prick fish. Put it out of your head and take something at random from your roommate.

I was thinking of this, because of that question; "how do you decide what books to read?"

My answer, in so many words. They just come to me. I rarely now by books, yet I have more of them laying around waiting to be read. They seem to multiply. People hand them to me, people leave them in things they lend you. People force them on me. My mother sends me them (to be fair I ask). Or I just find them.

Saturday night I was walking down the street and what should I see on the ground, top book on a stack of discarded books. a Pristine, un-spine cracked copy of John Irving's "Until I Find You". A book I have been wanting to read since it was out in hard back. A book I would have bought. But nope. There it was, just fricking laying there, hoping I'd notice. So now as I'm reading that, did I actually even decide to read that book, or did the book decide I'd read it?

Maybe the answer to the question "How do you decide what books to read?" is that I don't. The books make the decisions.

At any rate I'm glad they do. I love books. Books make me a better person.