About books

So it's that time of year when I just want to find a book to fall into and into and into and that book would never end. Like when I was a precocious kid on summer vacation and all the grownup books were new to me and I'd read anything, good or bad, and something long or with multiple volumes was the best book book of all.
And I didn't and don't care if it's great literature or pulp fiction.
Especially in summer, I don't care. So the summer I discovered Harry Potter was a good summer then another year it was Ron Faust and another it was A Series of Unfortunate Events
This summer I'm searching, I read Playing for Pizza and that's good but short and I've read most of Grisham anyway. I think about re-reading an old favorite but I already re-read ...And Ladies of the Club last winter and I'm not in the mood for Gone With the Wind.
I'm lusting for something new when I catch a wisp of buzz about a new book in a series about vampires, not a subject I'm particularly interested in but something in the reviews catches my interest and I order a used copy from Amazon, my favorite way to acquire a book cheap, especially when I suspect the hold list at the library stretches into the next decade.
So Twilight comes and thank God it's a week with not much going on, because suddenly I've fallen hard and can't quit, I just can't quit reading. The story opens its covers and invites me in and it's like I've been bitten--I step into this new world and don't want to leave.
And when the first book is done I'm dying for more, so I say casually, let's got to Wal-mart, we need a couple things. And he thinks I mean paper towels and orange juice, and I what I really mean is Eclipse and New Moon and Breaking Dawn.
The stack of three books on the table calms me as I think of the pages and pages before me and I start the first one and disappear. I read when I have a minute and I read when I don't and I read when I wake up in the morning, I read in the car, I read til 3 a.m., I wake up tired and don't care. Because I just want to keep reading. I read like I am 12 and the only obligation I have is my chores and if I don't do them my mom will. I'm not 12 and I have to go to work and it's a temptation, a horrible temptation to bring my book to work with me and read instead of work, but I resist, my inner grownup is in there somewhere.
So I read and read and read and I want to finish, no I don't -- I don't want the story to end. I don't want to turn the last page. Yes I do. Of course. Is it why I like books? They can end tidily, as this series does? With, even, a happy ending?
Maybe so.
How I loved this past week, lost to me in any substantive way, perhaps, as I lost myself in that fiction-world. Who knows how long until I find another story or another author who will invite me into a place I don't want to leave? Yet I know, I will.