The Monkey on my Back!

I’ve been reading a long time. I started when I was four and that’s been
over . . .excuse me, the telephone is ringing.

Anyway, as I was saying, books have been important a very long time.
One of the selling points in marrying my husband was that I thought he
was a reader and I pictured us reading our respective books in bed, either
before or after–not an issue. It turns out that his carrying a novel, and
periodically stealing a few moments to read during one of our initial
road trips, was a fluke. He was and is a daily newspaper reader, occasional
magazine reader and anything required for work reluctant reader.

Except in the past four years, he’s been more up-to-date in reading
the bestsellers than me.

We joined audible.com and, since I’m the more computer savvy, I’ve been downloading novels for his commute. I tend to choose titles I’d want to read if time permitted. In fact, for the first year or so, I downloaded titles I’d read or planned to read so we could discuss them later. After twenty eight years a couple tends to run out of stuff to discuss, if they’ve got great kids like ours. I’m not bragging, I’m thanking God–I know it was a crap shoot! Lately I’ve been downloading titles that I’ve heard a lot about and titles by African American writers because I want audible.com to buy more AA titles. It’s my way of giving our buck another turn in the black community, especially now that our favorite AA bookstore has closed.

I’m starting to get a little jealous. He’s having way too much fun. Last month while perusing the titles, I ran across Dark Dreams an anthology edited by Brandon Massey. Since I’m a fan of Brandon’s and I have friends featured in his anthology, I have a signed copy of the physical book, but I paid to download it too.

The second book I choose was A Meeting In The Ladies Room by Anita Diggs. I’ve submitted manuscripts to her as an editor, but I didn’t know she wrote novels too. I knew her novel would have to be good, who would know the subject matter better? Plus, I figured it would give him some insight into my world as an agent. It’s not the first time I’ve chosen something for him because I wanted him to think about the topic. (An aside–the person that controls your literature has a lot of power over your thoughts. There was a real reason why slaves weren’t permitted to read.)

The last two nights in a row, he’s been telling me about this murder mystery with his usual enthusiasm for fun reads. Now I have to order the book so I can find out for myself. Also, I can never stop there, I’ll have to buy her other novels too. And I’m such a greedy person, I went online and found out she has a blog–now I have to read the back issues of it too.

So many words, so little time. Excuse the rambling–just one of those days

Jackie