Ate breakfast this morning on the porch. The clouds were as lazy as I was. Looked like they were hardly moving. It was nice and peaceful till the little flock of fighting finches arrived for breakfast and stirred up the quiet. Haven’t seen the finches in a while. The love to squabble about the perches. Fourteen feeders and they just all like the same one. Has six perches and there are four fighting finches. So do the math and wonder like me, why they fight. Just their nature, I guess. Got to get a closer look at the fighting finches. If they are house finches and not female purple finches that would explain them being aggressive, specially around the feeders. I read that they are one of the only birds known to fight off non-native house sparrows. I hardly ever see sparrows in my yard, maybe that’s why. To identify them I’ve got to check and see if they have rounded or pointy tail feathers. Don’t know if they’ll sit long enough for me to check. I’ll let you know.

Yesterday, August 9th, was celebrated as National Book Lovers Day. I missed it. I love books. When I was a teenager I loved to hop on my unicycle and head to the city library. I’d check out eight books and pedal home with four under each arm. I’d “read the day away” in the porch swing, in the top of the old magnolia tree across the street, or sitting in the crook of the dogwood tree in my front yard. Many nights I got in trouble for staying up late reading. I finally learned to read in a sheet tent on my bed with a flashlight.

As I sat in the swing at dusk watching for my favorite raspberry cloud, I thought about what eight books I’d check out today if I rode my unicycle to the library. These eight books would be the only ones I’d be allowed to have in my home library the rest of my life. I started with 15 books and narrowed it down to ten and then to eight. These are my choices. Some I’ve read several times, some only once but their stories stayed with me. Just got these off the top of my head. Maybe I should have asked the internet for help with current fiction. I’ve read Gone with the Wind eight times and always find some new nuance when I read it again. I first read it as a child. I’m also notorious for looking for books that are thick. Something that takes a while to read. When I was in college studying fiction, I’d read the required book list the first week of class. One of the professors used to pick on me for reading the books before we started studying them. He’d ask a question, my hand would shoot up, and he’d say, “Anybody read the book besides Lane?”

The books I chose are The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain; To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee; Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens; The Thorn Birds by Colleen McCullough; Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell; The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers; Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neal Hurston; and Beloved by Toni Morrison. I think I could read these books over and over again. Course I’ll probably wake up in the middle of the night with a new list but I’m not changing it. Yeah, I know these are old books and there are great new books but… I really haven’t enjoyed reading since Chief died. Just can’t concentrate. Had the same problem after Rosie died. Maybe I need to start reading on my eight book list and that will get me back in the habit.

All my children love to read and Chief and I spent many happy hours reading to them in our laps and when they were older we read to them sitting between them on the sofa by the wood stove. Reading to your children and grandchildren is such a gift. A love of reading is so fundamental to succeeding in school. For 13 years I volunteered on my lunch hour reading books to children at an elementary school in Alexander City. I enjoyed those days as much as they did.

I’m already starting to think of a new book list for my library so I better stop writing. Need to add Cold Mountain and The Horse Whisperer and of course a Sibley bird guide. Let me know what you’d put on your list.

“A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. The man who never reads lives only one,” — George R.R. Martin.