My Car Book

by Pa Rock
Bookworm

Reading is one of the true enjoyments of my life. For as long as I can remember I have kept a book by the bed that I read from each night. It usually takes two to three weeks to complete an average size novel. Since moving to Arizona last fall, I have also gotten into the habit of going into work early and reading in the car before entering the din of the office. On days when the heat isn't too awful, I will drive to the local Sonic for lunch, put the top down under the big Sonic awning, and read a few more pages of the car book before dealing with my afternoon clients.

While my bed books change every few weeks, I have been reading the same car book since arriving in Arizona. Today I completed Lovecraft Tales, a compilation of the major works of H.P. Lovecraft, a pulp writer of the horror genre in the 1920s and 1930s. This edition, over eight hundred pages of very small print, was put together and edited by The Library of America.

I now feel that I know as much or more about the ancients than the average social worker. Although I have never read the dreaded Necronomicon, I have been exposed to some of its darker secrets, and I know that at least one copy is still in existence - in the ancient book section of the library at Miskatonic University. Lovecraft shared so many of life's horrific mysteries and secrets, and his writings point the way to answers of questions that have yet to be asked.

The highlight of reading Lovecraft, however, is not the strange places to which he transported his readers, it is the beautiful and arcane language that he employed while telling his tales. Those who collect elegant words and masterful phrases would do well to peruse the pages of any Lovecraft story or novel.