A confession...

I'm a librarian, complete with fancy degree from the top library school in the United States. I work hard to encourage reading and literacy. The Dewey Decimal System holds no mystery for me. And I can shelve books with the best. But, here is my secret librarian sin...I don't read much.

I'm not a bibliophile. At library school, when all my classmates gushed about books and libraries growing up, I admitted that librarianship looked like a good job. On quiet, rainy afternoons, I don't curl up with a book, I take a nap. I'd rather go for a hike in the woods than get hopelessly lost in a used bookstore. And those creepy old stacks in a library are, to me, just that: creepy.

As a kid, I read voraciously. Then I hit college and reading became work. And in library school, 90% of what I had to read was crap. Boring crap. By academic librarians. Oy.

What was the last book I read, cover to cover? No idea. What was the last item I read where I didn't skip whole chapters just to finish? Don't recall. What book influenced me the most? Probably a short one.

So now, when patrons are aghast when I admit that I haven't read the book they are holding, I just smile like the Cheshire Cat. Which was, I think, a character in some book...