Why I am looking forward to bedtime tonight

It happens every week or two.

I've finished my bedtime book and am prepared to begin a new one.

It's always a novel.

Nonfiction stops at the bedroom door.

I will not admit reality to my sleeping chamber.

Never have, never will.

Anyway, I browsed the "to read" area downstairs in my office: perhaps 100 books ordered but not yet read, some gathering dust for years now.

No matter: as Truman Capote wisely observed, "Once you own the book, you don't have to read it."

My man.

But I digress.

After perusing my hoard for a while I settled on four finalists, stacked on my bed right in front of me as I write this.

The envelope, please.

The winners (in no particular order):

• "Beat To Quarters" by C. S. Forester

• "The Third Woman" by Mark Burnell

• "Turning Angel" by Greg Iles

• "Rat Run" by Gerald Seymour

Which will win the grand prize and join me in my cozy nest for the next couple weeks?

Who knows?

Because here's how I decide:

1) At bedtime I pick up one of the books and begin reading.

2) If I can't stop, the decision's made.

3) If I can stop, then book #2 comes up for its audition.

4) Etc.

I've never had to go beyond four which is why that's how many I take upstairs.

Oh, man... how long did you say it would be till I start to get sleepy?

********************

Back when I was in college a miracle happened: somehow I received enough financial aid to be able to buy hardcover books to read for my own pleasure.

From the time I was little my definition of what it was to be rich had been just that, to not have to wait for the paperback.

It's still my definition.