Why do they call us bookworms? It’s always rather puzzled me. Why not bookbears or bookbirds or bookdogs, for that matter? Just about anything, it seems, would be preferable to being likened to the slimy, squirming insignificance of a slithering worm.

The book part, of course, is obvious. There are people who read to gain information, there are people who read because they find it marginally enjoyable, and then there are people who read books because they simply cannot resist. We don’t nibble at books, we devour them, swallow them whole, spend hours gulping them down and barely taking the time to come up for air.

In this, perhaps, bookbear would be more accurate. Booksharks, even. Swimming along our lives, chomping the rowed teeth of our imaginations on bound works of fiction or nonfiction we happen to come upon.

We don’t just like to read, though. We simply love books. We love everything about them. We love the feeling of the pages, the paragraphs, sentences, words, letters, and how they look in black-on-white. We love the smell of old books, that musty scent so peculiar to yellowed, slightly brittle pages. We love the way the spines of new books are stiff and pristine, and the way the spines of ancient classics are creased and well-loved with the hands of many eager readers through the years.

But it’s not even just books. No, we love places that have lots of books in them. We visit libraries and bookstores, not because we need anything from them, but just for the heck of it. Just to be surrounded by the bookish atmosphere, so full of possibilities and ideation, to nest in it like a bookbird might. Finding ourselves a cozy corner and weaving various tomes into a little house, where we can live until life catches back up to us. If we are at a party, something most of us rather like to avoid, the host’s stash of books appears quickly on our radar, to draw us away from social interaction and into happy hours of perusing titles and perhaps taking a peek inside the covers.

But our obsession does not stop even with bookish places. We rejoice in the mere idea, of books, just the thought of all that they entail, imagining a home so full of them that there could never be enough shelves. We may be always reading and yet never diminish our to-read list–in fact, it may continue to grow longer. We don’t care. It’s not about getting through the most books possible and draining them of information. It’s about experiencing them, pondering them, chasing them like an eager bookdog chasing a tail it can never quite catch, but who takes joy in just the chasing.

All of these things are us.

When we think about it, though, we realize how wormy we truly are. How of all these delights, our highest happiness boils down to the tendency to find one delicious story, burrow in, and remain cozy within it until it is over–like a worm digging its way into a juicy apple. Humble, simple, and ravenous, when a rainy day hits or the world catches up to us, there is nothing better than to bookworm our way into a book, and live there for awhile, while time stands still.