Yesterday I visited my favorite bookstore, Changing Hands. An about-to-expire birthday coupon Changing Hands had emailed me was a good excuse for an excursion to my favorite independent bookstore.  I love that the store carries both new and used books.   Any time is a good time for the drive to Tempe to visit Changing Hands!

I have a soft spot in my heart for this bookstore anyway because this is the site of our first reading of LifeLines, an anthology of Chicken Soup style stories that five writer friends and I wrote in our writing group.  Whenever I visit, I check to see if there are any copies on the shelf. Yesterday I found one used copy in the anthology section. Motherly type that I am, I smiled when I saw that the anthology had been correctly placed among the proper companions after previously hanging out in the writer’s resource section.

After an hour of delicious browsing, I took my stack of books to the cashier, redeemed my ten-dollar coupon, and pulled out my frequent readers’ card.  Woo-hoo!  A brand new pile of books to read… Happy Birthday to me!

As I drove home with the tall stack of eight books riding shotgun, shopaholic guilt nagged at me.

Guilty Non-Fiction Book Pile

“Why would you buy MORE books when you haven’t even read the books you have?”  it accused.

“Where in the heck will you put these books when you don’t have enough shelves for the books you’ve got?” it badgered.

“Why can’t you just check out books from the library (like the five books you already have at home) and then take them back?” it wheedled.

“Why can’t you be like normal women and just get off on buying shoes?” it demanded.

Today, I was still suffering some buyer’s remorse.  I hadn’t yet moved the book stack from the entryway table where I had placed it yesterday afternoon. I hadn’t opened the cover of even one of the books last night at reading time.  But after reading my favorite blogger and publishing mentor, Michael Hyatt, I’m feeling a lot better. Michael is the CEO of publisher Thomas Nelson, and I appreciate his knowledge about the publishing industry but even more important, the words of wisdom in his blog are always thoughtful and inspiring.  Like today’s post about reading nonfiction.

Since I read almost exclusively nonfiction (evidenced by my new book tower of non-fiction), Michael’s post particularly interested me.  Reading “How to Read a Nonfiction Book” gave me insight into my shopping spree yesterday.  I need books like I need food.  I don’t feel guilty when I buy food at the grocery store, do it?  (Well, sometimes I do, if I’ve put too much dark chocolate into my cart.)  Books feed me and sustain me in my Wise Women Write business.  They provide the river of knowledge and wisdom that I use to inspire women writers.  They encourage and empower me so that I can turn around and do the same for other people.

Michael’s first tip “Don’t feel like you have to finish” goes totally against what I believed as a young reader.  Slog away through the book whether you like it or not, I once told myself.  But Michael reads until he loses interest, then stops.  I’ve been telling people that I’m a “book sipper”–my best description of how I read and why I have so many unfinished books on my shelf, on my floor, and on my bedside table.  I sip until my thirst is quenched.  I sip until the next great book comes along and then like the ADD reader that I am, I jump ship.  Later I might come back to the book–or not–and sip some more.

Mostly I read nonfiction because that’s what I use when I develop Wise Women Write assignments.  Someone once advised me to read the kind of work  I wish to write.  I can still remember using that advice to justify the long-ago purchase of  my first book of essays,  Anna Quindlen’s Living Out Loud, now a well-loved but beat-up paperback on my shelf. When I later met Anna Quindlen at a book signing at Changing Hands, she seemed like an old friend because I knew her so well from her essays. I told her which essay we’d just read in Wise Women Write, and she told me the essay–actually an old newspaper column like her other work–was a favorite of hers.

Michael Hyatt admits to reading novels “purely for pleasure.”  I rarely indulge in this pleasure, and when I do I feel somewhat guilty reading for fun and not for inspiration and information. I’m probably the only person in the world who hasn’t finished The Shack.  At first the author’s story seemed so real I thought the book was nonfiction.  Maybe I lost interest toward the end because it wasn’t. Maybe because it seemed like nonfiction, my book-sipping tendency came forth and I moved on for new sipping.

I like Michael’s last tip the best:  “Share the message.”  Oh, I do, Michael. That’s the very best part!  Nonfiction books feed me. They guide me. They inspire me. But then I want to share.

I share when I blog about books I want to tell everyone about.  I’ll carry a loved book in my bag to Wise Women Write groups and do a “show-and-tell.”  I’ll quote a short passage from a special nonfiction book when I craft an assignment, like I have been doing with Sue Monk Kidd’s fabulous Traveling with Pomegranates: A Mother-Daughter Story.

My pure pleasure is being so inspired by a book that I can’t wait for someone else to read it and then be equally inspired.  I share books like I’m offering bites from my dark chocolate stash, passing out a tiny taste of what I know to be a wonderful treat.

If you read nonfiction, I’m sure you’ll like Michael’s tips. Are any of his tips ones you’re using? Any new ideas of his you’d like to try? I like his idea to use little label symbols to mark books although I’ll have to get over the Catholic guilt I’ve carried since grade school.  I was careful to make no marks in my textbooks because at year’s end we had to page through our textbooks and erase any and all pencil marks. Education with the nuns is a hard memory to erase!

Whether you read fiction or nonfiction, here’s my tip: Today let’s celebrate being readers.  No more guilt…life is too short and there are just too many books to taste, sip, and enjoy!

Disclosure of Material Connection: Some of the links in this post are “affiliate links.”  If you click on the link and buy the item, I will receive a few pennies from Amazon. However, I only recommend books I believe will benefit my readers. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

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