Book of Love? No.

Did I ever mention how much I adore bookstores? We have a Books-A-Million right near my house that I just love to visit. Not only do they have books, but they have all kinds of games and Elvis bookmarks. No Bon Jovi, though. I keep suggesting it, but the manager doesn’t seem to listen. I could spend an entire day in there looking through the stacks of books that the authors worked so hard to put together.

I don’t read all types of books, though. I’m not at all into books of love, like romance and I don’t care for self-help books either. I always head straight to the true crime section, the biographies or if I’m in the mood...a good fiction mystery.

I buy all of my books. I can’t do libraries since I was a child and checked out a Nancy Drew book and found a piece of a used Kleenex being used as a bookmark. I’m by no means a germophobe, but that is just gross. It made me wonder what else people use as bookmarks with books they have no intention of keeping. No thanks. I’ll just buy a fresh copy.

When I was younger I used to read books all the time. Several a week, but now I go through spurts where I won’t read a book for several months and then I will devour four or five of them and go back to not reading again. Too many interests and too little time is the reason for that. Sometimes I like to write, sometimes I like to read, sometimes it’s the piano or learning the new “Soulja Boy” dance from the kids.

There’s also the 40 or so TV shows to keep up with on the DVR, oh and soccer, volleyball and cheerleading. Yikes, right?

Well, after reading the OJ hypothetical confession book, I got back into reading mode. I just finished “Green River, Running Red” by Ann Rule. It’s definitely not a book about love, though. It’s about the notorious 20 year search for the Green River Killer, Gary Ridgway and his victims. It’s quite interesting as to how people’s problems growing up can lead to something like this. Not only the killer’s in this instance, but the victims as well.

Ann Rule is, by far, my favorite true crime writer. My favorite book of hers is actually her first, “A Stranger Beside Me” about Ted Bundy. She worked with him volunteering on a suicide hotline and describes the cases and her revelations that the person she considered a friend, Ted Bundy, was also “Ted”, the serial killer.

I’ve been reading about serial killers and crimes since I was a child and watched them take bodies out of John Gacy's house and to this day, it still floors me that these emotionless, sociopathic serial killers are able to carry out these horrific crimes and yet blend themselves into society like they do.

Ann Rule’s book about the Green River Killer really piqued (thanks, Mom H!) my curiosity about this case. Another book was written by one of the detectives on the task force, Dave Reichert, who is now a Representative from Washington, called “Chasing The Devil”. It’s next on my “to read” list.

And then after that, I’m going to stick with the “psycho” theme and read that Rita Cosby book about Anna Nicole, Howard K. Stern and Larry Birkhead. Yes, I really am!

So much scandal, so little time.