My church website (www.emersonuuc.org) has an Amazon link embedded in it. We get a percentage of anything bought from Amazon when the buyer goes through the link.

Just for the fun of it, I thought I'd check it out. That's what I told myself: I would click through just to see what was on offer. As if I didn't know.

Once I had logged into Amazon, the site's recommendations loaded up, and of course I had to look at them. The latest in the series I'm reading (Gil Cunningham), the first of the Knights Templar (I bought the second in the series after I read the reviews panning the first but lauding the second) and ... and ... so on.

An hour later and quite a few dollars poorer, I finally came up for air. There's something about books...I want to read them all...not enough lifetime left...I should be more selective. Sigh.

I must confess, one of the main reasons I want to retire is that I want more time to read. A couple of hours a week, and maybe an extra hour more on the weekend: not enough.

There's always time enough for work, but not sufficient time for reading. My MS requires me to sleep 8 hours a night; if it weren't for that, I'd probably read far into the night even during the work week.

I'm impatient with having my nose always to the grindstone. I want to enjoy other places, other people, other centuries. Give me books or give me magazines!

So I buy books. And read them when I can. I once had a New Year's Resolution that I would read one book at a time and finish it before opening another--not start one, then start yet another. But I have fallen back on old habits and there is a stack of books next to my reading chair with bookmarks, accusing me of neglect.

I love books.