Four

In news surprising no one: I love books.

But I don't just mean that I love reading. I love the actual books. I love that my books have different heights and hefts, different fonts and covers, varying levels of whiteness among their pages. I love the way they look stacked up or spread out or lined up on a bookshelf. I love the way they feel piled in my arms or open in my hands. I admit it: in addition to being a reader, I'm a book collector.

As an author, I delight in the way an idea that started inside my brain transforms itself, from the inside out, into one of the objects I love to collect. First, it spends so long cocooning in my mind, then living on my computer. It’s a mushy, blob, an unformed thing, that belongs to only me. But slowly, it turns itself into something more solid than an idea but less solid than an object, a manuscript, which flies back and forth between my computer and my editor’s.

Then, it goes into hiding. I don't see it for months. I barely think of it as a new mushy idea starts bouncing between my skull and fingertips.

When it suddenly returns, it has grown several more features of the solid object it’s destined to be: a fancy internal design, meticulously drawn chapter headings, and, most magically, a cover.

My ninth book, THE WORLD DIVIDED BY PIPER, has almost finished this metamorphosis, and, though I've loved all my covers, this one may be the most magical yet.

I cannot tell you how much I love this. I love the colors–these are the colors I wear :-) The scene and all the little details in it are straight out of the book. It manages to make math look like magic, which is how math feels to Piper, the main character. And it’s as if the garden I have been dreaming about for years flew out of my brain and onto someone else’s canvas. I am in love.

My first book came out ten years ago. After ten years and nine books, I’m still pinching myself that this gets to be my job.

I’ve been a reader my entire life, but I didn’t always acknowledge my book-collector ways. I once had a job in a school library. I would never call myself a school librarian because I had zero training and ninety percent of my job was just cleaning up large piles of books. The other ten percent of the job was book match making. A kid would describe what she liked to read or watch or think about, and I would pull books from the shelves that would make her stick her head into the library a few days later and swoon about how much she was loving said books. It was fabulous.

But I had this one kid who challenged me every week with this request: “I just want a book that’s pretty!”

I tried in vain to convince her not to judge a book by it’s cover, but she insisted that the cover is a part of the book. After weeks of this debate, I noticed something. Though she was pulling books for what I thought was the silliest quality, this girl was devouring them all. She was carrying them around the hallways, rearranging them, staring at them, but she was also reading them. She had the hardest time choosing books because, for some reason, libraries are not organized according to the aesthetic appeal of the covers. But outside of that challenge she was enjoying her reading life more than anyone else I knew.

I’ve always read widely, across all genres and markets. So, although I write books for children, I’ve never thought of myself as reading like a child. But when my reading life starts to lag, when I can’t read a book, when I find nothing with pages will envelop me the way I love, I channel this girl and her childlike joy in books. I create another way to choose them, a system that’s illogical and whimsical and structured.

When I went back to school in the beginning of the year, I knew there would be less time for reading, so I bought these great scratch-off maps. They are meant for travel, but I scratch of a state or country whenever I read a book that takes place there. I then chart the exact trajectory of that book with color-coded tiny stick-on earrings.

Don’t ask. me why. There’s no point. There’s no particular goal to scratch off the whole map or anything.

But adding this structure and whimsy to my reading life has turned it into some version of adult independent play, and, maybe, that’s part of what we all need to get through our various midlife crises.

So far, in 2023, I've been to six countries and thirteen states, plus DC.

However, (sigh) I suppose I should acknowledge that some people choose what to read based on something, like, I don't know, what the story is actually about. So, for those who are not completely allergic to spoilers like me, here's the flap copy for THE WORLD DIVIDED BY PIPER:

            Eleven-year-old Piper has big plans. First, she'll win the Academic Decathlon with her best friend, Tallulah. Then, she'll finish her life's work: Metaphorical Math. And in the meantime, she and Tallulah will maintain their secret, El Jardin Muerto. Nothing can stop Piper

            Nothing...except for puberty.

            But Piper doesn't have to worry about that because her body has been on pause ever since she started blockers to delay her early-onset puberty. Based on seeing her older sister struggle with body changes, her mother's attempts to balance too many demands, and the way all the women in her life are too often dismissed, Piper is definitely not excited to grow up.

            But when Piper's doctor says it's all right to stop treatment, everything is thrown off course. Will a changing body change all of Piper's plans? And why does she have to grow up in the first place?

            Or does she?

Recommendations

1. For listening: I cannot stop thinking about Serial’s new podcast…

2. For reading: As part of my attempt to consume content centering women over forty, I completely devoured Rebecca Makkai’s I HAVE SOME QUESTIONS FOR YOU.

3. For living: This one’s pretty obvious, but I recommend scratch off maps, however you want to use them. They are so fun!

What I’m wondering…

Any other book collectors out there? What other silly systems do you use to choose or track books?

Or, how else do you add independent play to your adult life?

Also…we leave for the beach tomorrow and I plan to do a lot of scratching off my map when we return. Give me all the summer reading recs! Especially if they center a woman over 40.