This is My Town - in Books

When my mom was helping me unpack/move boxes in the Hobbit Hole awhile back, we tackled the bookcase in the den (which has since been moved and re-arranged). As she was digging into a box, she stumbled across my "random collection of ultra-boring books" (this according to Himself, not me), which included several autobiographies and biographies of well-known people. She looked at them as she put them on the shelf and commented on the number of democrats represented in my collection.

Honestly? I had never realized this. I LOVE to read. I can't think of anything I like to do more (including anything to do with food). I love biographies of fascinating people. I make LISTS of people about whom I want to read. I don't necessarily think about whether or not I agree with the person's philosophy, I choose them based on how fascinating they are to me. I like to read about people who made surprising contributions to the world or did something different or were influential during a particular period for whatever reason. Beyond that, I love to read non-fiction books on things about which I am passionate.

I looked at the books. What I saw was not a representation of political leanings/ideology, but a representation of DC - a compilation of so many of my passions. I realized that it might appear to an outsider that I am slightly obsessed with all things DC - architecturally, culturally, anthropologically - everything. I have a stack of DC-related coffee table books, which I often find myself thumbing through. I have Meg Whitman's book on her perspective of Washington (in which she comments so accurately that DC is the place to which over-achievers come to congregate and and find their place in the world - so true!), Katharine Graham's collection of essays on Washington Life, a collection of essays written by Marjorie Williams - a prominent Washington-based writer, autobiographies of Madeline Albright, George Stephanopolous, Sandra Day O'Connor, Katharine Graham and others.

Then there are the books which have Washington connections and reflect my life's passions (which do a pretty good job of explaining why I love DC so much): the Joseph Ellis biography of George Washington, A People's History of the United States, several books on journalism, by journalists and commentary on the media - all with some sort of Washington insight.

The fact that I want to read a biography on every President of the United States probably should be revealed, in interest of full disclosure on all obsessively DC things. I am dying for a particular book on the history of Washington and another detailing the architectural significance of some of its greatest buildings and monuments.

I love that city, the people, the culture, the flaws, the insanity, the precise nature of everything there, the symbolism, the history - everything (okay, everything but the traffic). It was the city of my coming-of-age, the city in and around which Himself and forged our relationship, the city that encompasses such a rich part of my life.

Maybe there is no "slight" obsession. It is probably no wonder there is a shrine to my beloved city in my bookcase.