Bucking the e-book trend, with books coming out of my eyeballs

One of the weird changes that’s happened to me since I moved to Mexico is that I’ve become ravenous for books.

I’ve always loved reading. I brought a packed bookshelf into the relationship when Crayton and I got married, then I got rid of a few dozen paperbacks, and then we slowly created another packed bookshelf, which is with us in Mexico.

When I lived in the U.S., I only visited bookstores to buy gift cards for friends or if an author I liked was giving a reading there. Crayton’s voice would echo in my mind every time I bought a book off Amazon: “Where are we going to put them?”

Lately, though, I buy books with absolutely no regard for the future. Our Mexico bookshelves are just about packed, and I don’t care.

A few days ago, while purchasing a discount copy of The Best American Travel Writing 2008 — I book I never would have bought PM (pre-Mexico), because anthologies are the types of books I breeze through, love briefly and forget about, and then give away four years later — I actually thought a tall stack of books might be a kinda cool decorative touch. A shabby-chic intelligensia kind of thing, maybe. (Don’t worry, I’m not really going to do this, it was a fleeting thought from a woman obsessed.)

These are the books I’m taking back to Mexico with me, after about two-and-a-half weeks in the States. And this is just my list, mind you. Crayton has about eight more books of his own. One of them is called “Cold,” and it’s about cold. As you can see, we have vastly different tastes.

1. Regional Mexican Cooking by Diana Kennedy. Scored this 1984 edition at Cookin’, a vintage kitchenware store in San Fran. There wasn’t even a question of where or not I’d buy it. It is DK, people.

2. From My Mexican Kitchen: Techniques and Ingredients by Diana Kennedy. This is her new book, which I purchased on Amazon. It’s full of the detailed information she’s famous for — the sections include “Fresh and Dried Chilies,” and “Making Vinegar.” Lots of beautiful photos, too.

3. Food from My Heart by Zarela Martinez. I love Zarela! She always posts interesting tidbits about Mexican food on her blog. I read about this book on Amazon, and it mixes personal stories with recipes, which is just the kind of cookbook I gravitate toward.

4. What the Dog Saw by Malcom Gladwell. It’s a collection of his New Yorker essays, and the quirky, random quality of each makes it the best airplane reading ever. For example: Did you know a Catholic scientist was among the American inventors of The Pill?

5. Recipes from the Old South, by Martha L. Meade. Another treasure from the San Francisco vintage cookware store, published in 1961. The first recipe, “Bacon Biscuit Balls,” won me over. I must make it for Crayton someday, followed by a gigantic salad.

6. Salsas by Ricardo Muñoz Zurita. A gift from my mother-in-law, who knows how much I love this guy.

7. The Looming Tower: The Road to 9/11 by Lawrence Wright. Been on my list for awhile.

8. One Amazing Thing by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni. An impulse buy at the bookstore, with book-jacket blurbs from Jhumpa Lahiri, Abraham Verghese and Louise Erdich. I cannot pass up a book that’s recommended by those three.

9. Shark’s Fin and Sichuan Pepper: A Sweet-sour Memoir of Eating in China by Fuchsia Dunlop. Recommended by a new friend. It’s about a British woman who moved to China and became obsessed with the food.

Truthfully, part of me hopes that someday I’ll have an entire room for my books, a library of my own, with cherry wood paneling, a leather chair and a duck phone like the one from Silver Spoons. This is probably not going to happen in Mexico — we can only afford two bedrooms tops in our neighborhood, and hubby needs somewhere to put the TV — but a girl can dream.

We’ve debated getting an iPad or Kindle, but haven’t decided yet. It certainly would cut down on our overweight-suitcase anxiety. We’ll see.