Introducing: Your Bibliotherapist

Greetings and Salutations!

I suppose I should have written this introduction when I first opened this blog, but that train has left the station. Better late than never, right?

Through Google's glorious inter-connected flow, you can find out who I am through my blogger profile(also woefully un-finished, are we sensing a pattern yet?), so this won't be chock-full of personal facts. I just want to tell you, dear readers, why I want to help you and a bit of who I am. I want you to trust me.

I've struggled with severe depression and anxiety issues my whole life. I've had trouble getting them correctly diagnosed over the years, so I don't even care to attempt labeling it any more. My battle is my own personal battle, and that's that. The two main things I have learned throughout this long war is as follows:

1. I love books. I love words, I love reading them, I love writing them. They help me find my purpose, they help me dream and remember better days. They are my solace in the dark. They have been for years. Reading inspires me to write, inspires me to fight against my demons with pen and ink. 
2. I am at my best when I am helping people. It's that simple. When I am taking care of others, and helping them find their hope, their joy, their purpose, I feel like I'm finally myself again, and I'm actually making a difference. 

That's why I started this blog. What better way of bringing these two loves together then by this blog? Huge thanks to the people at Book Riot for thinking this one up. When I read the "job description"(you can see it up there on the top of my page, keep scrolling up, there it is!) I knew I had to do something like this. Talk to people, start a blog, anything. Since I'm a writer, I figured a blog would probably be the best way to go. Not very many newspapers want a second "Dear Abby"-styled column. But I know there are plenty of other bibliophiles and book-lovers out there who struggle with problems, just as I do. And it doesn't have to be about depression, or anxiety. It can be anything. Going through a divorce? I have a book for that. Changing jobs? I have a book for that. Traveling across the world and you need to refill your Kindle to distract you from your fear of flying? I have a bunch of books for that, none of which feature plane crashes. Please, let me help you. Let me give you a new world inside the covers of a worn paperback or on your Kindle, or however you best read. Within the literary world there are a myriad of places to go to find yourself again, no matter who you are. That's the beauty and wonder of reading. 

You might say that you're a picky reader and you want to choose your books yourself. You might say that reading doesn't do anything for your worries and your personal traumas. Fair enough. My word is definitely not gospel. I'm not even a doctor. I'm just a blogger with an English degree trying not to go crazy herself. I'm not even asking you to give me money! Just let me help you. If you don't like the books I suggest, that's fine, you can tell me so and we can try again, or you can go on your merry way. If you think that reading can't possibly help in any way to change your life, I honestly have to ask you if you've ever read a really, truly good book. Just give it a try, okay? You have nothing to lose, I promise. 

Maybe it was the way I was raised, where I taught myself to read at the age of four and devoured anything with words that I could get my hands on. I've always adored books, even when I hated the way the stories went. That's probably when I decided I wanted to write. Then I realized how truly magical the world of writing and reading is. I can make up worlds all my own, and my characters can do whatever they need to do to find their place and solve their problems. It's beautiful. Sorry, tangent. 

Books are stories from eras past or released today. There are billions upon billions to choose from. I believe that throughout the entire history of humanity and the written word, there will be at least one book written for each star in the sky. And they are all written by people like you and me. People with heartaches, people who have gone through incredibly traumatic experiences and suffer from the same sadness that we do. Let them help you. I'm really just the middleman here. I just want to metaphorically see you smile again, and the best way I can do that is read what you send me, and put a good book in your hand that I truly believe will help heal your heart and soul. I might be just an anonymous face on the internet, another 20-something blogger, but I truly just want to help you. Will you go on a book-reading journey with me?

Best is a Book Twice Read,

Your Bibliotherapist

Book Review: "I Murdered My Library"

I Murdered My Library (A Kindle Single) by Linda Grant

28 pages, time read: less than an hour

Alright, dearest readers. Time for a book review since no one wants to make use of my singular and lovely services(she passive-aggressively intoned). 

I picked this title up possibly through the wonderful Book Riot people, or maybe through Amazon seeing I was voraciously devouring books about books. It's definitely a book about books, or a little snippet of a book about a woman's life-long love affair and subsequent murder of her own personal collection of books, as the title delightfully suggests. 

Linda Grant quickly entangles us into her own serious problem(that I and many of you probably so well know). She has too many books. Blasphemy, I cry. No such thing! I also have moved back in at my parents' house and my hobby-loving father blesses me with a new bookshelf at least once a year. Toting all those boxes of books to and from my two small and horrid apartments in the span of one torturous year was not fun. So I have slightly felt her pain. Grant speaks of moving from her Tel Aviv quirky multi-story home(had to look up and see what the hell a maisonette actually was.

Its one of those strange modernistic homes that look like it was designed by a strange Wonderland escapee) to a two bedroom flat. This book takes place mostly in England, by the way, for you Brit-ophiles(I think that's a word in pop culture). So there's a multitude of names and words that are more popular over that great pond of the Atlantic than here, so be prepared to be using your Kindle's word-look up tool a lot. What is that thing called? X-Ray? Whatever. I know I'm not the only one who finds it handy, regardless of what it's called.

Ahem. Sorry for the tangent. Grant draws us quickly into reminiscences of her life as an only child(at least until she was 8 and her sister was born, "but by then the habits of solitude were set in the bone."Loc 83) and her preference for quiet days inside with books rather than loud, messy days outside with children she couldn't and didn't want to relate to. I as an only child can definitely relate to her choice. She goes on to bring us through the years of her book affair and the different stages of literature she waded through. Any born reader who has grown up feeling as if "bookshops were temples, places of worship"(Loc. 122) probably has similar memories. She eventually tells us of the heartbreaking self-inflicted pain of downsizing one's library, a pain I pray I never have to endure.

I Murdered My Library is an enjoyable day trip through the 60's to present day of literature, with an author full of quirks and memorable word structure. I'm definitely looking to pick up another, hopefully longer read by her. This one is free through Kindle Unlimited(whoever thought this program up is a very rich god of a human being), or just $2.99 at the moment on Amazon. It is a Kindle Single so it's only available digitally, but its worth it. 

I'll end with her thoughts on a personal library:

I return in memory and imagination, but I return by taking a book down from the shelf, and reading a few pages. That is a library. A full larder for the soul. - Linda Grant

Happy Reading!

Best is a Book Twice Read,

Your Bibliotherapist