“You know you’re in book love when…”

Who knows what Twitter will ultimately become, but recently it surprised and delighted me when I posted this question: “You know you’re in book love when.…” Here are some of the responses:

“…you want to read aloud to whoever will listen!”–twitter.com/hchybinski

“…you recommend it to everyone even strangers.”–Sara Anderson @DIYSara

“…you stay up all night to finish in one sitting with no concern about how hard it will be to get through work the next day.”–Ridge Walker @ridgewalker

“…you read your friend's birthday present b4 he gets it.”–@rufalena

…you think the only thing better than going to sleep with a good book…is with a man who's just read one.”–Molly Block @mollyblock

Now I’d like to cast this book-love net wider, to readers of this Well-Read Life blog, and offer Levenger prizes for the most captivating completions to that sentence.

Book love defined

Just to make sure we’ll all on the same page, I describe book love as that feeling you get when you can’t wait to get back to your book. As I describe in my Little Guide,  book love is a lot like romantic love. It’s a feeling, while you’re going about your workaday duties, of being beckoned by your book so the two of you can be together again. That’s a very good feeling.

You’ve been in book love before, or else you wouldn’t be reading this. But are you in book love at this very moment?

Be honest now—how frequently are you reading a book you can’t wait to get back to?

If you answer ‘all the time,’ my hat’s off to you, and I ask you to please pass on some of your techniques to readers here. If you answer, ‘not as often as I’d like,’ then perhaps you can learn with the rest of us how to get more captivating books in our lives.

I’d like always to be in book love because for me, it means I’m learning. Whether I’m reading fiction, history, biography, science or whatever, I want to be drinking from that fountain of learning for the rest of my days. For me, learning is the ultimate luxury.

So in this spirit, I ask you, dear reader, to complete the sentence. The three most worthy responses in the sole opinion of our judges (see rules below) will win valuable Levenger prizes. 

The sentence to complete: “You know you’re in book love when…”

Contest rules:

• This contest is a thinly veiled plot to inspire people to rise up and get more books in their lives.

• Winners are chosen by our totally biased and non-independent judges who work at Levenger. Levenger staff members and their families are eligible to win (but won’t).

• Submissions become the property of Levenger because we intend to use them for shameless commercial purposes. Please supply your full name so we can credit you (with honor, not money).

• Management takes full responsibility for the consequences, including the theft of whatever you leave on the Levenger coat rack or in our parking lot.

Ready to fall in love again? Just click on the Comments link below with your submission. (If you’re reading this as an email, click here and you'll connect to Comments).

Comments

[Brian Scott Richardson]

you meet an old friend with every turn of the page.

[Shelley Ryan]

...you have to keep buying the same book over and over because you impulsively give your copy to a friend.

[Jill O'Neill]

You know you're in book love when the ideas expressed by the author keep coming back to you throughout the day.

[Twila Oxley Price]

I have two definitions, depending on if I've been reading fiction or non-fiction.

You dream about the characters and they haunt you for days after you've finished the book, until you give in and reread the darn thing!

You keep quoting bits and pieces of your favorite information out of the book, and buttonhole coworkers and anyone else you can to hear how awesome this book is.

[Brian Scott Richardson]

characters become friends, settings become as vivid as life and the stories become treasured memories.

[thelittlefluffycat]

You know you're in book love when you buy extra copies because you "might need them".

[Jeff Jones]

You know you are in book love when you have a library card from the town where you spent your vacation.

[Ruth A. Asbery]

Are we allowed to repost our Twitter's? I'm the “…you read your friend's birthday present b4 he gets it.”

[Pauline Baird Jones]

you add the book to your "comfort read" shelf and pull it out to reread when you are down.

[Jean M. Appleton]

You know you're in book love when you are planning to put your house on the market because it no longer has enough wall space for all of the bookshelves you need to house your (still growing) collection.

[Melanie Evans]

You sit in church on Sunday with your favorite book hidden inside the hymnal or Bible. For the record.....I only did this when I was a kid (grin).

[Walter L. Ritter]

You know you are in book love when you consistently re-read brilliant passages, mark them, record the page numbers in the front of the book and then give a copy of the book to your eighth grade English teacher of fifty-seven years ago because you know that she'll love the book in the same way you do.

[Kirstin]

..you enjoy every single re-read like a visit with an old dear friend..

[Ranti Junus]

... the real world around you get blurred and you become the main character of the story.

[Robert Ferguson]

You know you're in book love when you wake up in the middle of the night to the gentle murmuring of "read me, read me" coming from your favorite book and you open it and finish it before going back to bed or the alarm rings.

[Mark Wukas]

...it never leaves your nightstand.

[Bill Bradford]

You know you are in book love when you'd rather call in sick to work so you can finish it NOW instead of LATER.

[Laura Thieme]

...a book enables you to cry and to laugh within the same night, and you're willing to do this in public on a plane! Two books caused me to do this on two separate occasions while travelling.

[David Froment]

...when you're not reading the book, you're living the story.

[Stephen Keyes]

You know you are in book love when you buy BOTH the book and the book-on-tape, so you can continue 'reading' the book while on your commute to and from work.

[Carol Jo]

You know you’re in book love when…
You have to reread sentences because tears have blurred your vision.

[Carol Hill]

You know you're in book love when you don't hear the phone or see the room getting dark because you're completely absorbed in the author's world, and you find yourself trying to slow down as you near the last few pages because as much as you want to know how the story ends, you also never want to leave.

[Gretchen Hunter]

You've lost count of the number of copies of the book that you've bought for others

[Susann Robitski Cannon]

...I read the book rather than wait to listen to it as an audiobook, even though my "not enough RAM" information processing problems (from multiple sclerosis) demand that I devote absolutely, totally focused attention to reading.

(Its easier for me to process information in words by listening to someone read the words rather than reading them myself.)

[E C Tan]

...when every other page has a line or two that speak/s to the core of our inner being...

...when the margins are colourfully marked up with yr handwritten thoughts peppered with exclamation marks, stars, etc.....