5 for Friday: Signs that you were born to be a Book Lover

Book Lover. I don’t mean the casual book lover who reads whenever they have some free time (they’re great too), but a Book Lover. The ones who are obsessed; the ones who become authors, book bloggers, bookstagrammers, editors, publishers; the ones who work with books all day and then go home to relax with a book; the ones who have book piles in every nook and a TBR list to the moon and back. Those Book Lovers.

I believe there are moments in a person’s life that mark them out as Book Lovers. Destiny. Fate. Kismet. Written in the stars. Luck. Mere coincidence. Call it what you want but those signs are there.

If you’re one of those Book Lovers, then you can probably look back at your life and find these moments when destiny threw you onto the book-loving path you were born to be on.

I have loved books since before I could read, but I was, for many years, a casual book lover by choice. I took 2 courses towards a Publishing diploma but switched to Corporate Communications instead. I toyed with the idea of a book blog many years ago but started a food blog instead. But somehow, without even realizing it, I have become a Book Lover.

Here are 5 signs that showed me I was born to be a Book Lover. Do you recognize any of these in your own life? Hit the comments and tell me about your path to becoming a Book Lover!

You share a significant day with a famous author

(My parents told me most of this story since I was too young to remember parts of this). When I was about 2 years old, I was fascinated with the books on my mom’s bookshelf. Most of her books were in Chinese but there was one in English (not that I could tell the difference) and the cover fascinated me – it was Agatha Christie’s The Body in the Library.

I vividly remember the cover and according to my parents, I claimed the book for myself and carried it around with me EVERYWHERE. It took almost a year before I lost interest in it and moved on to more age-appropriate toys and books. The Body in the Library faded into the land of lost childhood memories.

As I grew up, I developed a love of mysteries. I devoured the entire Agatha Christie booklist by the time I entered high school and soon moved on to other authors and books.

YEARS later, I was browsing the internet and saw the exact cover of The Body in the Library that my mom had and, in a flash, remembered my childhood fascination with the image. I guess I had been an Agatha Christie fan before I could even read! I decided to do a quick internet search to make sure I had read everything she had written (yes, *gasp* I grew up in an age when the internet didn’t exist) and found out one interesting tidbit:

Agatha Christie died on the exact day I was born.

Your body size introduces you to your favourite children’s book

Ask any of my friends and family and they will tell you I’m a terrible actor. I’ve never caught the “acting bug” and 100% would rather be behind the scenes than in front of a camera. My one and only acting gig came when I was 6 years old.

When I was in first grade, our school board received an Arts Grant to adapt The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster into a play. Our school was chosen to host the production and for an entire school year, our little school was in chaos as kids and professional theatre people ran around getting the play ready.

I was chosen to play one of the two lead characters – Tock, the Watchdog. I had never read the book (I was 6!) and could barely even read the script so someone had to read it to me so that I could memorize my lines. The boy who played the main character, Milo, was much older. I don’t remember his name but I do remember he was really nice and patient, especially when it came to rehearsing our lines and showing me what I was supposed to be doing.

Long story short, the play was a success but I never had the itch to go on stage again. I did, however, read The Phantom Tollbooth when I was able to and loved it.

Years later, I bumped into one of my teachers and mentioned the play. I laughed over the fact that I had no idea why I was chosen to play Tock – I didn’t even audition! She smiled kindly and said it was because of my size. The prop car that Milo and Tock had to drive around the stage in was smaller than they had planned and the boy who played Milo took up a lot of room in it so they had to find a child small enough to fit in the car with him but who could also remember their lines. Since I’ve always been the smallest kid in my class…I was a natural “fit”.

Your impulse buy turns out to be the best purchase ever

I was meeting a friend downtown, but she was running late so I decided to browse a bookstore while I waited. My friend texted to ask me to pick up some book (I forget what it was) as a last-minute gift for her aunt. While I waited in line to pay I glanced down at the bins they leave near the cash registers (you know, for “impulse buys”). Someone had left a copy of The Night Circus in one of the bins (I guess they changed their mind about buying it). I had never heard of the book before but the cover and back blurb intrigued me so much that I grabbed the book and bought it then and there.

The Night Circus is now my favourite book ever (yes, it’s official) and I re-read it every year.

A childhood hobby foreshadows your future career

When I was 10, our library system held a city-wide contest to find 12 bookmark designers. The winners would have their bookmarks printed and distributed throughout all the library branches in the city (one new bookmark each month for a year). I entered and WON. I was the November bookmark! I was so proud of myself, I must have handed out bookmarks to everyone I met.

But then I gave up art (I honestly can’t draw very well). I finished my schooling and ended up with a degree economics. I went off to work in a lot of offices doing a lot boring office work but now… what do I do for a living?

I design promotional materials for authors. (Read on for more about how this was an accidental career).

You fall into a book-related career by accident (plus, you have awesome Twitter timing!)

Speaking of working with authors… my “career” really just fell into my lap. For years I worked in public relations and corporate communications in industries nowhere near the publishing world. I ended up taking a job that required me to set up as an independent consultant. So I decided to give it a shot. I was freelancing as a marketing consultant for a food agency for about three years when an author friend (who I originally met on Twitter) asked if I could help her with some marketing. I agreed but I never thought it would grow beyond that.

Then I replied to a random tweet from another author (who I wasn’t following at that time) regarding marketing assistance. I agreed to help her too.

Fast forward to one year later (ONLY ONE YEAR??!). I now exclusively work with authors and writers and I’m making enough as a freelancer to replace my previous job. Two tweets was all it took to give my life a new direction. TWO TWEETS. I get paid to read, write and talk about books all day long. How is this my life??

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So, there you have it. Books have obviously been a larger part of my life than I had ever realized. I am surrounded by teetering towers of books and my TBR list is insane. I mark book publication dates on my calendars like holidays and birthdays (everyone does this, right?). I am a Book Lover – and proud of it!

What about you? Were you born to be a Book Lover? I’d love to hear your stories!

Until next time, thanks for stopping by!