Reading is Fun .. da ... Mental

Grandma reads to Andy.

Reading is fundamental.

Fundamentally ruining my life, that is.

I love to read, but I don't have a lot of time to enjoy a good book.

Right now, I'm supposed to be reading The Hobbit so that my 3rd grader and I can discuss it (he's reading it at school.)

But the night after I started The Hobbit, I was already bored with The Hobbit. I think this happened 10 or 20 years ago, when I tried The Hobbit before. So when I went to put away book seven of the Harry Potter series (another group of books I read simply to understand what my 3rd grader was reading), I came across one of the hundreds of books I kept when cleaning out my mother's library. My brothers and I donated hundreds of her books to a local charity's book sale, but I kept a few hundred that I knew I'd want to read some day, some day when I could.

When Kevin asked for butter for his bread at dinner the other night, I explained that I'd mixed up a little olive oil with cheese for the bread. That's when Kevin said, "I hope you get done with this book soon so we can move on, culinarily speaking."

Yes, the night before I had made this rare-for-us heavy pasta dish with roasted peppers, garlic and pepperoni. It was de-lish-us, but totally out of my normal menu plans. Kevin had asked, "why the pasta tonight?" Pasta is a rare treat for us because neither one of us can stick to the suggested serving size.

I answered that I'd eaten very light that day, so I was craving a heavy pasta dinner. But then I realized, my desire for rich Italian food was due to the book I was reading.

Mario Puzo's The Godfather had sucked me in, hook, crook and bullet. My mother had always praised its qualities, but I figured it was just a cheap, stereotypical Italian mobster tale.

But as I dove into the book, I knew, this was one of those books that would take over my life, if even just for a few days. It would challenge me, in that it would challenge my devotion to my health, family and general well-being. I would sneak into the closet after Kevin fell asleep so I could read another chapter; lock myself in the bathroom under the protests of my sons, just to sneak in another page or two; pick the longer drive-through ATM lane to steal another hit, if only a paragraph or two.

Reading is like a drug to me. I have a list longer than Long Island of books I'd like to read, but I purposefully take a month or two off between picking up a book I really want to read. Because I know I will neglect other parts of my life -- basic hygiene sometimes -- when I get grabbed by a good story.

Sometimes I wake up from a good night's sleep not sure if I'd dreamt something, lived it or read it. I confuse characters I've met in books with people I've met in real life. I always figure it out -- reality  vs. fiction, but, still, I recognize a problem when I see one.

Rest assured none of my children has gone hungry or missed school because of my addiction. My work gets done, life, real life, goes on, and once a book is finished, I move on.

I'm looking forward to the summer. My oldest (the soon-to-be-4th-grader) and I are embarking on a book-movie club, where we'll read a book then plan to see the movie based on the book. Think Mr. Popper's Penguins (for current film releases) and Diary of Anne Frank (for older ones).

In that spirit, I suffered through nearly three hours of The Godfather movie the other night. I'd never seen it, but I'd always wanted to. It paled in comparison to the book. The characters weren't rich like they were in the book. Major story lines were left out. I'm sure I irritated Kevin, who'd seen the movie before but humored my obsession, as I would explain little side-notes throughout the movie, such as, "See, in the book, this guy was a freaky little pedophile, which makes the whole horse head thing not as out-of-bounds as it might seem ...".

Here's to a summer of books, maybe a few movies.

Now, what to read next ... ?