bookshelf

You can tell a lot about someone from the books they read. She had heard this somewhere, and so she started keeping a running list of all the books she actually read, from cover to cover. Not just the books on her shelves, which included unfinished autobiographies, textbooks and required reading from her school days, and a few older books she just thought would look good in her small living area.

Over the past year she had read constantly, adding each new book to her list with a sense of accomplishment. Now, more than fifty books were on the list. She should feel proud. But instead she glanced at the titles and felt small. Most of these books were vampire books. Trash, really, or at least Mrs. Andrews would have called it trash. Fantasy books - the kind with dragons and mythical beasts. Horror books, with serial killers and sometimes even monsters. Light reading with flaky heroines and a closet full of supporting cast characters that entertained the reader while teaching absolutely nothing. There were no classics. Nothing enduring or thought provoking.

She slowly tore the page out of her notebook and held it in her hand. She couldn't leave it in there for people to see after she died. They would know. They would know how truly shallow she was. In life she was tolerated, but if these lists were found she would be discraced in death.