I snuck away

I knew it was a bookstore sort of day.

I knew it was so, that I planned my entire morning around being free in the afternoon to roam rooms of books and rooms that spilled into other rooms of more books.  I swear to you Powell's Books  seeps euphoria.

Do you ever have those kind of days?  When the only thing you want to do is smell, touch and read books?

Many read to escape reality and maybe I'm just the same.  I can't say there was anything to avoid this otherwise regular Tuesday, but nothing was clearer than the fact that my heart wanted to leap between pages and lie there for a while.  The possibility to happen upon a work that could change my life might also have some weight in this matter. 

Do you ever turn pages hoping that within might lie a gem of wisdom that you will remember forever?

This might be the exact reason that I last-minutely walked past the writing section, landed eyes on Natalie Goldberg's, "The Great Failure," picked it up, skimmed over the back, and called her a keeper.
Maybe, in some sort of serendipitous-sort-of-way, Goldberg's gold covered memoir was the only real reason I went downtown today?  Perhaps between the hard covers is a story that might interweave with mine, and/or spill open a truth that I didn't know I was searching for and will sing prelude into my life's next chapter?

Such is the mysterious adventure in books and in reading.  Maybe I'm romanticizing a bit?

With the tick of freezing rain bouncing off the window pane, steeping mint tea and a stack of beautifully unread books on my nightstand, I have finalized my decision on my first read for the year 2011.  Instead of Vladimir Nabokov's, "Lolita" or Virginia Woolf's, "A Room of One's Own," I begin with "The Great Failure: A Bartender, a Monk, and My Unlikely Path to Truth." It came about when I had other things in mind, but so goes life--

many, many unlikely paths leading to truth.

Now, I hope it's a good one.

{UPDATE: I'm two pages in and already marking this book up!  This is a very good sign.}

What are you reading this New Year?