I wish I had more time to read.

I have always loved a good novel, from my childhood days of The Little Engine That Could to my elementary school Boxcar Children/Beverly Cleary phase, on through my junior-high perusing of John Grisham and Mary Higgins Clark, and finally my more recent flirtation with mysteries by Sue Grafton and Janet Evanovich. Rarely have I come across a book or an author I didn�t like (except for maybe some of the newer stuff by Grisham, but that�s neither here nor there).

The problem I�m having is that, in the last year more than ever before, I can�t find the time to read.

I often use this space to whine about how I�m constantly running from one activity to the next, trying to squeeze everything I can into the twenty-four hours I�m given each day. I made a promise with myself not to do that this week, so let�s just leave it that I�m busy.

I�ve also made it a habit over the years to read right before I go to sleep at night. More recently, that golden time right before I go to sleep has become just as overbooked (no pun intended) as the rest of my day, with activities like �writing in my journal,� �eating something more substantial than just Sun Chips and candy corn for at least one meal a day,� and �watching Law & Order� all vying for attention alongside reading for pleasure.

During my recent loftily titled two-week �fall intercession,� I plowed through two books: Getting Unstuck, by my hero Dr. Joy, and Jeremy Thrane by Kate Christensen. The former got me re-addicted to Dr. Browne�s daily radio show while the latter reminded me that books are still fun.

I guess part of me misses the responsibility-free life I once led, a simpler time when I could stay up until all hours just absorbing the words on a page. Another part of me knows that I�ll never go back and that if I didn�t have a million things to do each day, I�d probably wither up and die from boredom. I�d rather pull life�s little ripcord or die trying, I guess. That sounded a lot more philosophical than I intended. Oops.

The other part of me craves big words, obsesses about sentence construction, gets anal-retentive about punctuation, argues out loud with spell check and idolizes James Kilpatrick. I have a deep affection for the language, despite the fact that I often butcher it.

I am a firm believer that the best way to learn new words is to read new books. Ever wonder how the kids winning spelling bees and skating by in English make it look so easy? We read. For fun. Look into it. While I�m on the subject, Vocabulary in an English class is bullshit for the most part, because who wants to be forced to memorize a bunch of dumb words no one has ever heard of or will ever use in real life? Personally, I loved the vocabulary packets because I knew most of the words already. I�d seen them before in books.

People can generally be divided into two categories (although labelling people isn't very classy and tends to cause neverending social problems, but can't picture a line in the sand dividing the well-read and the not, with each side crafting 'clever' slurs like "book-lover" and "illiterate moron," so I'll let myself slide this one time): those who read and those who don�t. Some people come out of the womb with a highlighter and a Bic round stick medium in their hand. Others...don�t. I�m not saying it doesn�t happen, but rarely does someone �discover� reading after years of general illiteracy. It is much more likely to go the other way, as in my case, where reading gets unintentionally benched in favor of other (often less rewarding) pursuits.

Thus, I felt a little guilty when I visited Barnes & Noble last week, like someone who has skipped church for the last seventeen consecutive Sundays. But, like a straying (more likely sleepy) parishoner, I found that it's never too late to go back to the places you love and/or throw money at. The gods of the literary world were with me that day, leading me to an amazing discovery.

Clustered among the foreign language dictionaries and unrealistically monikered 'personal growth' tomes, I stumbled upon a section of the store I never knew existed. I don't know why I was so pleasantly surprised to find an entire section devoted to the art of writing, odd words, and other literary staples for the would-be English majors among us (don't worry; I know better than to actually major in English). I'm sure I knew there were books like that available. I'd just never sought them out, so they found me. I spent a good hour perusing the many titles in this section and grinning idiotically.

The idiotic grin lasted about until the cash register, where the sales clerk tried to make me buy the overpriced membership card. I explained to him that I am perpetually poor and promised to purchase a card sometime during my life. As I plan to live for several to many more years, I don't believe I'll have any trouble following through. (You may have noticed that this little BN anecdote had nothing to do with the rest of the essay, really, except that maybe the sales clerk is supposed to symbolically represent a pastor in much the same way that the creepy old man following me around the store for no good reason represented a child molester.)

Bottom line: TV sucks this year (who gave Eight Simple Rules a full season pickup? I want names!), and no good DVDs come out until November, so I plan to nurture my love of reading back to health.

It's a good time to start reading again, too. Patricia Cornwell is spending all her time and money trying to find the real Jack the Ripper, so the temptation of another disjointed and ill-constructed Kay Scarpetta novel should be nonexistent, at least for a few months. The new Sue Grafton mystery came out yesterday, and a holiday-themed Stephanie Plum novel is due in stores soon. One of these days, I'll get around to finishing Skipping Christmas, and you'd be surprised how often I get addicted to an author by random chance (my extended family will tell you that all I did was read Evanovich for an entire week at our family reunion last July), so I'm considering that to be a reasonable possibility this fall.

It's also starting to feel like fall outside. The air is just chilly enough for it to be sweatshirt weather and there's nothing like crashing out on the couch on a Saturday afternoon with a good book, a thermos of hot chocolate (so as to avoid getting up to go for refills), and a package of Iced Oatmeal Cookies (just 88 cents at Wal-Mart!). So if you'll excuse me, I need new batteries for the booklight, because I've got no plans tonight and the couch is calling my name.