I Love Books

I got to go to one of my favorite places tonight on my way home from work...the bookstore.
I don't know why I love going into bookstores so much...I was never a real page-turning crazy person. Don't get me wrong, I love to read, but it hasn't been one of my number one hobbies of all time. Something about bookstores always grabs me though. I think it's just being literally surrounded with so much creativity. There are books on everything and someone, somewhere sat down and wrote those books. Someone poured their heart and soul into writing those words. Someone else created cover artwork. Someone else compressed everything into a book format, and that's almost an art in itself to me.
I think it's a line from an under-appreciated movie, Mad Love, where he says "You love books, not necessarily reading books, but books themselves." I've always thought that line applied to me.

My reason for my venture today was to get a new book for my weekend trip to Florida to my friend's wedding. I was finishing up a book at home (just finished a minute ago), and wanted to have something fresh for the plane, B&B, down time, etc. I got a new book by Jodi Picoult, who has become my favorite author over the past few years. She writes amazing novels about touchy subjects. They are always hard to put down once I start them. Pick up anything by her. She's amazing.

I've been thinking about books lately because of Petunia. I really wanted to decorate the nursery for our girl after my favorite book of all time, Alice Through The Looking Glass. Yes - it's a real book together with Alice in Wonderland - their not just movies and a Disney cartoon. I had grand plans to use the Lewis Carroll's (the author, people) imagery and drawings to put on the walls, and create bedding based on the inspiration from the book (tea cup fabric, chess piece fabric, flower fabric, white rabbit fabric). Here's one of Lewis Carroll's illustrations, there are tons! This was all well and good - and then my total opposite husband stepped back in :) Dain hates the idea, as he thinks Alice's stories are "creepy" - and doesn't want our daughter to sleep in a room based on a drug-addicted pedophile's fantasies. Boo! Okay, so YES Lewis Carroll was obviously on some awesome drugs, and YES he did write the Alice stories based on his obsessions with a little girl named Alice and her sister...but COME ON. So, here we go...it's the crib saga again. I'm working on other ideas, and have actually found a few things that I like online...so he may get his way...but do YOU think Alice is out of the question??

On a final note (this is a LONG WORDY BLOG eh?) - I have also been compiling books for Petunia that were my childhood favorites. I have the following:
Dorie and The Blue Witch
Bad Friends, Good Friends
Little Rabbit's Loose Tooth
The Daddy Book
The Five Chinese Brothers
Bread and Jam for Frances
King of the Dollhouse
Chicken Trek

I have the rest in my sights - and plan to collect them all for my little one:
Miss Suzy
Miss Nelson Is Missing
Harry the Dirty Dog
We Help Mommy
We Help Daddy
The Lorax
The Giving Tree
Jellybeans for Breakfast
Gregory the Terrible Eater
Where the Wild Things Are
The Teeny Tiny Woman
In the Night Kitchen
Corduroy
Caps for Sale
Mr. Poppers Penguins
Harold and the Purple Crayon
ALL the rest of the Dorrie Books
ALL the Ramona Books
and more...

What were your favorite childhood books?