I have been doing this book a week challenge where I attempt to read a book every week of the year. I was on track until a pipe burst in my house flooding the entire house displacing me for over a month. Once back in my repaired house I left to Las Vegas for business, on the trip my laptop was stolen, I was to say the least lost. I mean really lost. I could have presumably lost anything really as far as tangible items but not my laptop, that is personal. I’ve gone without many tangible items in my life, especially in my childhood but the one I hold dear is my laptop.

In my laptop bag was my next favorite tangible object of tech infatuation, my Nook ebook reader. I was kicking ass reading books on it, flying through books in just a day or two. I was not only on track but I was ahead, like a few weeks ahead. I added a few magazines and newspapers, not including my RSS feeds I would read daily. But when it was stolen along with my laptop, my life stopped. Not literally, or even professionally but emotionally I believe I truly felt slighted. Insurance was going to cover everything so it wasn’t even a violation of someone having my stuff, all of my data was backed up and I take the proper security steps to protect my data. I guess I just felt lost without my daily attachment to technology.

My reading came to a halt. Weeks past, I shrugged, telling myself I didn’t care anymore, that it was impossible to attain anyway. My love for books didn’t stay dormant long though. While almost every weekend stopping by a garage sale, for the possibility that I might find a first edition Fyodor Dostoevsky‘s Crime and Punishment or an early 1800 Homer The Odyssey, I fell back in love with books when I found an 1855 Complete Works of Shakespeare with every owners name and date written on the first page. While finding writing in an aged book is incredibly bad for resale value it intrigued me and grabbed me. This one was special, yes, I knew when I bought it I was buying it for more than it was worth for a quick resale but Shakespeare is something else.

Not that I somehow have a hard-on for Shakespeare like a lot of my English major friends or friends who feel they have to say that shit to impress others. I like Shakespeare because in high school it was Shakespeare that first ignited my passion for the written word. I was not the most studious of my class but when I read Shakespeare I knew there was something worth paying attention to here. So when I laid my eyes on a 1855 Complete Works, I knew it had to be mine. When I got home and cracked it open I was lost. All my worries of personal and professional life came to a halt, I forgot where I was and who was around me. I sat there for thirty minutes before I rejoined the time continuum.

So, my love for books is the best and worst for me, in one way I want to collect and never let them out of my sight to never be touched but on the other hand I want to read them, even the classics for which I own their cheaper, more current, paperback version. There is something about opening a book that is 155 years old, in a romantic way I guess I feel connected to others who have the exact same affection for the writer. It was this book that helped me stand back up and get back into the game with the Book A Week Challenge.

I’m twelve weeks behind but I am determined to not only finish this challenge but to push ahead and finish with more than fifty-two books by the end of the year. The challenge is hard some days, other days I’m blowing through 100+ pages easy; my goal is to keep my head down push forward.