Why do readers read, do you think? Why do you read? Why do I? How long has it been since I have gone a day without reading?
That last question is easy. I think it’s quite probable that I’ve not gone a day without reading since I learned to read when I was six. And probably even before that because Mum always read to us at night when we were little. So I guess you might say that I read because I always have read. That I read because the love of reading was instilled in me when I was young. That a love of reading was modelled by my grandmother, and by my mum, and by my big sister Connie who were, and are, big readers. So I too became a reader.
As a child and an adolescent I read whatever I could get my hands on.
I remember the thrill of being able to bring my first school “reader” home for the night after we’d finished reading it in class. I think this must have been in grade one. We had to carefully wrap the soft-covered book in plastic to be transported in our book bags. And then once home, I remember proudly reading it over and over to Mum. “See Dick. See Jane. Oh, look and see.” Over and over and over. Ha.
I also remember quiet Sunday mornings, maybe a year or so later, rising before my sisters and brother who were teenagers and therefore slept late, and even before my mum who would have been tired after a week of work. I’d sit on the floor with all my favourite books spread around me and pick which one to reread.
A few years later I surreptitiously read my sister Connie’s books, replacing them carefully afterward. It seemed to me that the books a teenager was reading must be more exciting than my own books. When I babysat for the neighbour, I’d always steal a few looks at the stories in her “True Romance” magazines. They were deliciously scandalous, I thought. And then, of course, as I’ve mentioned before here on the blog, I’d visit my grandmother Sullivan’s big book closet where stacks of boxes of books were kept, and I’d always come home with a box of my choices. Connie remembers doing this too.
I recall, in junior high, Erich Segal’s Love Story made me cry. I read it over and over again. Gad. I can still quote the first couple of sentences. “What can you say about a girl who died? That she loved Mozart and Bach and the Beatles and me.” At least I think that’s how it goes. It was fifty-five years ago, after all. Frankly, the book makes me cringe now. But I was thirteen. So I give myself some leeway.
That same year I read Diary of Anne Frank and To Kill a Mockingbird both of which touched me, and changed how I looked at the world. When I say how much these books affected me as a kid, most people assume that I read them in school. Nope. They came straight from Grammy Sullivan’s closet.
Despite the fact that, as an English teacher, I taught To Kill a Mockingbird for many years, I still well up over certain lines in that book. In particular: “Miss Jean Louise, stand up. Your father’s passin.” Ooh, that one gets me every time. After we’d read and discussed the novel, I always showed the Gregory Peck movie in class. I remember passing around the Kleenex box from my desk a few times at the end when Scout recognizes Boo Radley. Despite the book having its detractors in recent years, I’ve always thought it a wonderful book for kids to read.
Books have always been part of my life. A big part. And I can’t imagine going a day without reading. It’s hard to articulate why that is. Hubby maintains that it’s because I’m basically a nosy person. I am, you know. I always want to know everyone’s story. I am driven by a love of narrative.
As a kid I loved to hear stories of the past. I’d pester my mum and my grandmother who, it must be said, needed little encouragement to launch into a story. Who was married to whom, how did they meet, where did so and so live when they were young, how did their story start, how did it end?
My grandmother told me stories of life when she was a girl in Four Falls, New Brunswick. How her mother died when she was fifteen and she helped her father raise her younger brothers and sisters. How Great-Grampy Everett lost his arm in the threshing machine. How the dances in Perth never really got underway until Grammy and her sisters arrived. The Everett girls were the belles of the ball, apparently. I lapped them up, those tales. And developed a passion for stories.
Books have sustained me through difficult times in my life. I remember the year my brother was so ill, and I was home with Mum, I talked to my sister Connie on the phone one evening. And she said, one reader to another: “Make a cup of tea and go read your book.” So I did. Dorothy Whipple, Someone at a Distance, I think it was that time. But it might have as easily been Barbara Pym’s Excellent Women. Or Anita Brookner’s Hotel du Lac. Three stalwart gentle reads that helped ease me through worrisome days. And nights.
In university, one year when I was stressing about essays that were due, I read my way through what seemed like the entire Agatha Christie canon as a way to avoid actually starting my work. Reading as procrastination. Reading books as a way of putting off writing essays about books. How ironic. I raided Grammy’s stash, and read one after the other: Poirot, Miss Marple, Tommy and Tuppence. The plots wrapped up nicely, all conflict resolved satisfactorily, and the world was put to rights. Sigh. Until I finished the book, and the darned essay still sat unfinished. But as time ran out, I hurled myself into my task and hammered out something to submit.
These were not work habits I passed on to my students, I might add. Once I was a teacher I could see that the reason I stressed and procrastinated as a student was because I did not know how to start. We’d never actually been taught how to write essays. We were just expected to do so. I hope that the kids my colleagues and I taught value being given a framework and a process to follow to help them discover their ideas and communicate them clearly. Not that they enjoyed writing essays any more than I did. Ha. But learning how to think, how to identify what we think, and how to communicate what we think are important skills.
But I digress.
Which brings me to today’s post and all these photos of roads. And paths. And trails. What’s with that, do you think?
I seem to be obsessed with taking photos of roads in the past few years. Roads at home and on our travels. Roads which lead up to the horizon or around a corner, and disappear. And they all seem to beg the question: what’s over that hill or around that turn? And it dawned on me this morning that roads make me think of narrative. Of plot. Of unfinished stories. And maybe that’s why I keep taking these photos.
Nosy as I am, I want to find out where each road leads. What happens in the story. Or at least dream about what happens in the story.
And I think that is basically why I read. To find out what happens at the end of the story. Any story.
Doesn’t mean I don’t love the description of evocative settings. Or watching the development of interesting and complex characters. Or that I don’t appreciate, even revel in, wonderfully lean and creative style. I need all of these to persist in my reading of a book. But ultimately I read for the story. And what happens in the end.
And that my friends is why I am still writing this post at ten o’clock at night, instead of having finished it by dinner time as usual. Because I got stuck into a book this afternoon and could not put it down. I had chosen all the photos for my post, and begun to write. I took a break to pedal my exercise bike, and then to have lunch.
And while I was eating lunch I took up my book. A book I might add that I have been trying to get into for a week. But somehow I wasn’t in the right frame of mind for a tale that seemed a little too sweet, maybe too much like a really well written romance. Possibly modelled on the Cinderella archetype. But today, today this book and I just clicked. And I could not put it down. Three hours later I pried myself away and sat down again at my computer, a half hour before dinner. Ha.
And so here I am. Just like back in university, hammering out this post at the last minute. Not that I was procrastinating. Not at all. Just that the book took me over.
Blame it on the book.
Blame it on my mum and my grandmother. They raised a reader, after all. And as I believe I’ve said in earlier posts about compulsive reading. Not my fault.
By the way, the book is Helen Simonson’s The Hazelbourne Ladies Motorcycle and Flying Club. And I have a couple of chapters yet to go, so I am going to leave you to talk among yourselves.
Tell us, my friends, why do you read? And how many years has it been since you went a day without reading?
P.S. There are a few book links in this post. If you make a purchase after clicking my link, I will earn a commission which helps to pay for the blog. If you don’t want to shop for books and you want to support my blog, you can always buy me a coffee. 🙂
P.P.S. Having said that, I encourage you to use your public library as your first go-to for books. Our library has a great system to reserve books as well as audio and e-books. I use it a lot.
62 thoughts on “A Day Without Reading”
I’ve often wondered why some of us are readers & some aren’t . It certainly develops empathy . The readers I know are far more empathetic than the non readers . Far more aware of the nuances of human nature . I love to know what makes people tick . It’s why I strike up conversations with strangers when I’m out & about . Dog walking was always good for that & I still do it now . I’m probably known locally as that nosey old woman . Stuart’s right about that . I can’t remember a time when I didn’t read . Books were a luxury , only Christmas & birthdays ( oh the Famous Five & Timmy ) but thank goodness for the local library. It would annoy me when , as an adult , people would say ‘ oh I don’t have time to read ‘ . After a long busy working day , I would be catching up with my latest read in bed before falling asleep . I had to find time for reading . And what am I reading now ? How funny , the exact same book as you about the lady bikers . I found it in the charity book shop a few days ago & I’m really enjoying it . How about that for a coincidence ?
I saw an article a few years ago that I had my students read. It told how one medical school had their med students read fiction to help develop empathy. I mean, if we cannot actually meet someone who has had a particular experience to help us understand about a situation, then reading fiction about such a person is the next best thing. In my view, anyway. About the “I don’t have time to read” people… that always bugged me too. Especially if it was delivered with the subtext that it must be nice to be so un-busy as to find time to do frivolous things… like reading. Ha. Love that we are reading the same book.
No time to read?
No time to breathe!
Yep 🙂
I’m with Wendy on the Famous Five and remember vividly the day – cold, boring, after Christmas – my mum dug them out from my brothers’ room and I realised with delight THAT THERE WAS MORE THAN ONE! A series! Never looked back. Reading is the ultimate solace. Currently scything through the bookshelves with lead-pipe cruelty, jettisoning books that I will never read and don’t want to carry. Old books. Books that are not mine. One-reads, read. It’s illuminating. And refreshing.
Yes to the joy of discovering a series — our 12yo g’daughter has recently whipped through one and has begun another. Both are “complicated big-family” series, and she’s now also discovering the joy of “comparative literature,” we could say 😉 She thinks about how characters in one series might get on with characters from another, is curious about the similarities and differences between them. And very keen to discover new series and/or impatient for the authors to write the next volume! (which is exactly how I am with mystery/detective series 😉
She is learning about comparative lit. That must have warmed the cockles of your heart, Frances. I mean as a grandmother AND as an Eng Prof.
Oh my… the joy of finding a series by an author we love. Or a long back list that we didn’t know about. 🙂
Like you, I’m not sure I’ve gone a full 24 hours without reading since I learned to read at age four. I can’t understand people who say they don’t have time, as I have ALWAYS made time to read, even when working full-time while raising two small children and keeping house. It’s as essential as breathing –at least for my sanity! I do love a good series, and after inhaling all of the Miss Silver books. I want to BE Miss Silver. Although possibly with a slightly better wardrobe.
I would like to be able to knit without looking like Miss Silver does. Ha.
Stories….Sue,you are our own Elizabeth Strout!
I’ve been waiting for a long time for a new H. Simonson (for me it is on the 3rd place of her books ,but still…..) and was very happy when I’ve found and read it
It is such an interesting question-why I read? Both my mother and father were readers,I’ve learned to read very early,books and stories were (and still are ) utterly precious to me. It was not easy to get some authors,f.e. Jane Austen (and some others) were printed only in cyrillic alphabet . A lot of authors were neither translated nor possible to find in original,some were forbidden or neglected or silenced or hushed up. It was such a treat visiting my grandmother-she had an attic full of old,pre-war (WWII) books, most of them printed like news paper series.
I wanted (and still do) to know about people,facts,situations,history,to learn,to widen my horizons….for years and years it was the way to see how was outside our borders,our mindsets. How people live,think,learn,communicate,work,dress,go out,court,eat,drink,what they read,why they act like that,cry,smile…you name it, I wanted to know and read about.What is similar,different,the same…..Finding time to read is a must for me,in good times,in bad times…and discussing books is a big bonus
Dottoressa
So interesting to learn of your early reading experiences Dottoressa . You’ve left me wanting to know more . Thank you .
Thank you Wendy,both for all of your wonderful recommendations ( when you mention a book,I jump – it seems that we have a similar taste) and a kind comment
D.
Me too. I’m with Wendy. Your experiences with reading, Dottoressa, when you were young are so very different than mine. Except for the grandmother with the big stash of books. 🙂
I read books to escape into a different time, and place. I love delving into other people’s lives, cultures and thoughts. I agree with Wendy in York, I think reading helps create better understanding and empathy towards others.
My love for reading really began when I was a student volunteer in my elementary school library. I remember reading all of the Nancy Drew and Hardy Boy series back then. I now enjoy reading all manner of subjects but my favourite these days tends to be historical fiction. I love learning about other cultures and understanding the context of a particular historical period. It’s a wonderful way to take a break from the concerns of today’s world.
I think my interest in historical fiction was prompted by old photos. I always wanted to crawl into the pictures and walk around to see what life was like back then.
I remember receiving my first library card at age 5. Such a precious possession. When we moved to new places, my first objective was pedaling around finding the library. I had to read every day, if nothing else to hand, the back of a cereal box would do. Other cultures, other times. Once I find an author I like, I’m afraid I read everything they’ve written. Then wait impatiently for the next one. (Gail Honeyman, where’s your next Eleanor Olyphant?)
The sharing of books with others. YOU must read this! It’s what connects us.
Thanks for a lovely read, Sue!
Oh, I used to love the town library when I was a kid. The big white painted library tables. And the shelves and shelves of books. I can still see it in my mind’s eye.
Books, ah, books have been in my life from early days. My aunt was the librarian in the town near us, and a glorious day was being among the books and in the little alcoves searching for the next wonderful adventure. I would help her put new plastic jackets on some of the hardcovers, and prepare for the annual book sale. When I had my tonsils out around 12, she brought stacks of books for me and I would sit on the back veranda in my own little heaven for the day. I too believe there has not been a day go by that I have not read something. I must have a book in my purse when I go to an appointment, others are on their phones, but a book is a must. There is something about turning the pages and holding it in my hands that is perfect.
I know all to well the anxiety of not getting the next one in a series in a timely manor, or having to wait for a new release, I just want to know what will happen next to my new friends. The problem is, I can sit up for hours in the middle of the night when I cannot sleep and read chapters of a book that ends much too quickly this way. I have just caught up with the William Warick series by Jeffrey Archer and have to wait until August for the next one. Guess I will survive. Actually never thought I would like his books until a friend at coffee group loaned me the first one. We have a wonderful book swap at our group . For a total change of ideas, I am digging into the color theory of color analysis at the moment, so really as long as I can learn something new or get carried away with words, I am good. Katherine Hepburn biography is next.
I enjoy your roads, and I am one for doors, any new country or town has some terrific surprises. Twice in England I was taking pictures of doorways, and met the most interesting owners, invited in and had unexpected visits.
I could go on, but this is not about me…LOL
I love that, Diane. Being invited into a stranger’s home because you were photographing their front door.
My grandmother loved to read, mysteries, romance, biographical stories didn’t matter what. When she lost her vision in her late eighties she gracefully segued into talking books through the CNIB and her library. Every couple weeks my aunt would pick up a batch and drop off the previous books.
I was smiling about your comment re Love Story …my son works part time in a book store and was telling me about the latest popular books aimed at pre and early teens. He said that he has a difficult time recommending some of them due to the very graphic sex scenes..he’s in his twenties and no prude. He says grandparents come in looking for titles because little Brooke asked for these books for her birthday!! One grandma proudly stated that her grand daughter was very advanced and loved these books ( kid was 12) Grampa had been looking through one and had clearly hit on a ‘hot spot’ came over to my son and said ‘ These are marketed to young girls?’ My son said that the books were very popular with that age group but that an advanced reader could take on something more challenging (sans the hot sex scenes) and he made a few recommendations. The stories are really quite banal and poorly written and added ‘kids just don’t read the good stuff anymore’
Love Story seems so tame now…
I don’t remember Love Story as being racy at all, even at my tender age. Ha. But wow, the dialogue makes me cringe now. All that “preppy” business.
This post is so close to my heart as my love of reading led me to spend my life as a publisher and a literary agent, and now in retirement I’m helping reluctant readers in a local school. But going back to the beginning, I learnt to read as a child in Scotland where we had to ‘batter’ our books. That meant to cover them in brown paper – no plastic for us!
We covered our books with brown paper grocery bags that we cut up, folded, and glued or taped. Sometimes the teachers provided big sheets of paper for us to use as book covers. The plastic I referred to were the plastic bread bags we tucked our readers into so they wouldn’t get wet in our book bags. Bread bags were so versatile back then. We also put them into our boots if they sprang a leak. Ha.
I am like you Sue – ever since I learned to read I read constantly. Even cereal boxes. My first series I fell in love with was Trixie Belden. I’m sure you remember when the Bookmobile came to school! So exciting. Thanks for the great book recommendations you have passed along.
I adored Trixie Belden. And the bookmobile. I remember living in terror that I would forget the books I had to return the day the bookmobile came. 🙂
I have tried to figure out why I became such an avid reader when neither of my parents modelled reading for pleasure. I know my mom read stories to me when I was a very young child, so perhaps that experience whetted my appetite for the joys of independent reading. We didn’t have a lot of books in our household, but I’m grateful for my parents’ indulgence in getting me to the library as often as I needed, which I’m sure must have seemed crazily often. My younger brothers never became enthusiastic readers, so I was the undisputed bookworm of the family, and didn’t mind that distinction at all. (My brothers both have many strengths to which I can’t lay claim!)
I married a reader and we raised four children who love to read, and who have continued to do so into their adult years — both nature and nurture at play, I’m sure.
It’s funny how nature/nurture works isn’t it? Out of the four kids she had, my mum raised two readers and two non-readers.
I too remember the day I learned to read! What a wonderful feeling. I still can conjure up the smell of my childhood town library. Nowadays I can never be without a physical book and a Libby book on my iPad just in case because I never want to be without a book. Most of my family are big readers too as were my parents, almost to the point I wonder if genetics play a role. And reading is a comfort to me in anxious times. My first job after college was working for a publisher so I got to see how books are made. And thank you for the recommendations you give; I’ve enjoyed so many.
I think the best thing about my mum and grandmother being big readers was the huge supply of books of all kinds my sister and I could sift through. And the conversations about books over the phone with my mum. 🙂
I love reading. Have done since I learned what a book was. I spend childhood years with a light and a book under the bedcover after I’d been told lights out.
At uni, instead of doing assignments for my BA, I read the whole Angelique series by Sergeanne Golon. I still managed to get a BA, with HD’s and onwards to a post grad degree when I finally decided enough with the study, I want to get on with life.
Books, words, paper, kindle, audio – all so precious.
Have also read the Hazelbourne book and it was fun. Educative within the narrative as well.
Lovely post.
The Hazelbourne book wasn’t my favourite of Helen Simonson’s, but I enjoyed it. I think I liked Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand better.
My parents and extended family were all avid readers, and so are my siblings. I was shocked when I married into a family of non readers. I have had a busy family and work life but always had at least one book on hand, something the in laws and family just could not understand.
IMO if you read you are never bored.
My mum and used to frequently wonder what people do who don’t read. How do they know things? We pick up so much general knowledge from reading.
I don’t think I have gone a day without reading since grade 1. I was an early reader and was reading age appropriate chapter books in grade 2. The saddest time of my life is when the pandemic started and I had only take 5 books out of the library the week before! In spite of Hoopla and Libby during the library closures, I was starved for books because I am a fast reader. Fortunately I do have a small library of books that I enjoy reading over and over again, I call them my comfort food. To Kill a Mockingbird is one of them but there are 6 shelves of others. Fortunately, I have passed the love of reading onto my 3 granddaughters who love to tell others that I read ‘more than 100 books a year’ which is true and while they don’t say it I think it will be a goal for them someday. Thanks for the post, it was a good one. ❤️
You must have panicked during the pandemic. That’s when my husband finally consented to read e-books. 🙂
I had to learn English just at that age when most learn to read. That was very difficult for a few months. Remember the blue phonics workbook in Grade 2? Terrifying. In 1957, there was no such thing as ESL help in Ontario schools. We were literally thrown in and ignored. It was sink or swim. And, magically, we swam. By grade 3, I was surfing through the extra tiered reading program.
We had no English books at home except the illustrated children’s Bible that my Mom used to learn English with our help. We got library cards and could walk down to exchange books whenever we wanted.
I had a thing about the Babar, the Elephant series by Jean de Brunhoff. (I’ve read them to my grandsons who wanted to page back over and over to the scene where Babar’s mother was shot…just like I did!) Then Hardy Boys (household dominated by boys) were passed around and a few Nancy Drew. And on and on. I still like series.
It’s amazing isn’t it how much the books we read as children had an effect on us? You must have been a born reader, Grace.
My sentiments exactly. In two days I”ll be 85 and I don’t remember NOT reading. I just finished Sipsworth and the Mostly True Story of Tanner and Louise…both books have women in their 80’s as main characters. I have your current book on my library reserve list!!
I remember reading Margaret Drabble’s books about mid-life characters when I was in my forties. And how wonderful it was to identify with the characters who were my own age.
Another lifelong daily reader here in middle England, including the back of cereal boxes. Books were from the library, as we did not have many at home. This lead to me owning a large collection of books as an adult which was pruned down just before the virus struck. In that time I rediscovered childhood books ,the Famous Five and Anne of Green Gables books left in the loft by my daughter. Followed by
EBay searches for the Chalet school books
and Malcolm Saville.
Reading is my joy, addiction, therapy and for knowledge.
Reading the end of a book before it’s finished does NOT spoil the ending. It enriches it for me. Re reading a book at different ages and moods is fascinating too.
Thanks for the post it was a good thought provoking one. I read because I like thinking and being challenged.
I remember reading some of Lucy Maud Montgomery’s lesser known books when I was in my twenties and really enjoying them. And I loved the Anne books.
I have always loved reading! At a young age, maybe six, I would read at night under the blanket with a flashlight after I was told to go to bed. My Mother caught me a few times and was angry. Then at age 9, I needed glasses. My parents took me to the optical store to pick out frames for my new glasses. My father announced to the whole store saying, “we are picking out the ugliest frames that you have because it is all her fault that she needs glasses!” So that led me down a long road of feeling ugly for my entire life. The only good part of this story is that I STILL LOVE Reading and read every day like you do! I was angry with the librarian when she wouldn’t let me take out War and Peace when I was 10 years old. lol. I also read The Red and Black by Stedahl when I was 12 years old. So, in the long run, my love of reading has won over the uglyness I experienced from my parents.
Ah. That’s terrible, Linda. Getting glasses is traumatic enough for a kid.
Like everyone commenting, I started reading at a young age. I remember being 7 or 8
reading the Wizard of Oz series and deciding that when I grew up I would go to the Library of Congress to read more of the series. I did go to the Library of Congress at age 31 to find a children’s book that my aunt had given me as a child: “The Adventures of Perrine” by Hector Malot (1893). The librarian recommended a bookstore in Georgetown to go to be able to purchase the book-wonderful to reconnect with the book and talk it over with my aunt as an adult! There is a wonderful Mary Englebreit poster (St Louis artist)-
Books Fall Open–You Fall In-which is for the St Louis Public Library. The poster exactly reproduces the sensation one feels when reading a really good book!
Exactly. As Penelope Lively said, books take you some place from which you never quite return. I may be misquoting that slightly. But you get the idea. 🙂
I don’t remember when I started reading but I think it was before school. My mother said one day she just realized I knew how to read before I went to school. It seems like I’ve always read for adventure, escape, thrills and at night or rainy days for I read daily and listen to audio books. I listen to audio books when I get in bed, when I wake up during the night, while I’m painting or walking.
I couldn’t imagine a life without books.
Books have given our lives so much richness, haven’t they?
Another early and avid reader here. My earliest memory of a book was” Kandy and the Bunnybabes” which my mother read to me on constant repeat. Woe betide her if she skipped a page!
I was an only child and we moved a lot so books became the family and friends I didn’t have. I went through the Famous Five, Secret Seven and Bobbsie Twins series and beyond. When we moved, the first thing I would look for was the local library and in a couple of places we stayed the library was no more than a dozen or so shelves at the back of a local shop. I would start at A and work my way through the different authors.
My mother was a reader and she used to buy a lot of books which have all made their way onto my shelves now. I was lucky as she never considered books to be “too old” for me so I just waded through the shelves.
At university I had a flatmate who was studying Rissian literature so that provided a wealth of new books and authors.
Once we had children they were read to every night and all three have inherited the reading bug. When they were little and playing in the bath I would sit on the laundry hamper and read. One evening whatever I was reading must have been quite enthralling as I continued reading while cooking the dinner with one child in my arms and the other two attached firmly to each leg as there was a very loud thunderstorm outside. My poor husband really thought I had lost the plot when he walked in the door!
Now the next generation of readers have emerged so my next task is to sort out boxes and shelves of books to pass on.
Why do we read- knowledge, entertainment, comfort and familiarity.
That’s a lovely image, Kenzie. Three children, a dinner on the way, and a book. Love that.
I have enjoyed all of Helen Simonson’s books. My favorite was her first one, Major Pettigrew’s last stand. She is one of the author’s whose next book I am always looking for. Others are James McBride and Amor Towles. Lately, I really enjoyed Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk by Kathleen Rooney and look forward to reading some of her other books.
Major Pettigrew was my favourite as well. I bought it for my mum and she read and reread it.
Another one here who is never without a book, since I learnt to read. There were so many wonderful books for children in the fifties, I longed to have adventures like the Famous Five , and the Swallows and Amazons.
But I think you either have it or you don’t, growing up no-one read in my house, but I can’t live without books, we read to our children and they saw me always having a book on the go but neither of them turned out to be readers.
In difficult times reading has been such a comfort too.
Reading is my solace during stressful times too. 🙂
Reading has always been my happy place. I vividly remember the first time I read an entire novel in one sitting–I was 9 years old and my parents were in the process of moving into our new house. When I proudly told them I had finished an entire book in one day, my father groused about the time I had wasted when I could have been helping unpack! (In retrospect, maybe that was the point…) Fortunately, that didn’t deter me. I continued to devour books. Every summer when I was in junior high, my mother would drop me at the library before she made her weekly trip to the grocery store. I would check out four books to read that week, and then return them for a new batch the following week. “Not having time to read,” is a foreign concept to me. Even when I was working, raising kids and keeping house, I always would spend at least 15 – 20 minutes every night before going to bed absorbed in a book–a precious escape from the day-to-day. Now that I am retired, I check out books electronically from the public library. What a treasure trove of material! So many books, and so little time! And most recently, for the first time, I joined a book club at my local independent book store. Each month, we alternate between fiction and nonfiction. What a joy it is each month to sit and discuss the selected book with such an interesting group of fellow readers. The diverse viewpoints and perspectives add so much to my own reading. Sue, I so enjoyed your post today, and the opportunity it gave me to reflect on how important reading has been to me at every point in my life.
I once heard an interview with the Canadian writer Robertson Davies when he was very old. The interviewer asked him what his one biggest regret in life was and he said “There are too many books to read.” I always remembered that.
Reading allows me to escape when life is difficult and lets me learn and hopefully gain empathy. I can’t imagine not reading. I usually have more than one book going at a time and wonder if Libby app had been around when I was in school if I would have finished! Audio books help mowing lawn and other not so fun tasks go by better. My mom is an English teacher and read and I don’t remember not reading. I recently lost my job and have been reading as a way to not deal with my life. Just got a divorce too so need a distraction and an escape from my no so fun life. Love your blog Sue!
Oh, Christa, that’s two huge blows you’ve had. Hopefully reading offers you at least temporary escape from the stresses of life. 🙂
Your post today is one of your all-time best! What I know is that my life would not be the same without books/reading. I am blessed that I had parents who valued books and we were given them as presents for various occassions (including some in Easter baskets). My maternal grandmother cleaned houses and one of her employers gave her books that her children outgrew. My favorite is one she must have read to me a thousand times and I have it displayed in our upstairs hallway on a child’s schooldesk. I recall running home from the library during the summer and enjoying nothing better than sitting outdoors reading! I can still smell that “book smell.” As an adult, I once had more plastic library cards than credit cards in my wallet. Oh, I could on and on. But, as you can tell books are a huge part of who I am. Thank you for reminding me of all those special moments.
You are most welcome, Beth. I’m happy you liked the post. 🙂
I’m finally catching up on posts after being away and then being sick. I’m so glad that I picked this post. I escaped into your story telling about learning to read, reading to get through tough times, to procrastinate and to find out what happens. And, on the appeal of roads and paths.
I devoured books as a child. I read anything I could get my hands on in our house. I remember my Spot, Dick and Jane books. I cried when Beth died in Little Women and I was wide-eyed over Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre. Later still, I cried when I read Love Story and The Diary of Anne Frank and my mind was forever altered by Anne Frank and To Kill a Mockingbird. (I read all three in school.) I remember Love Story was a very controversial pick when I was a freshman in high school, as some didn’t think it worthy of being a used in class, but there were hip teachers who thought it might capture the imaginations of students more than The Merchant of Venice, which we read that year too.
I do go some days without reading now. Usually I’m listening to a book on days that I don’t pick up a physical book. Sometimes, such as on my recent vacation, I was busy hiking, snorkeling, etc. and feel into a deep sleep as soon as my head hit the pillow. Sometimes, I’m read out after reading lots of things online (including blog posts, news, opinion pieces, stories).
There’s nothing like holding a book and reading it. I enjoy how people phrase things, sometimes so beautifully (for example, Ocean Vuong). I just finished listening to The Women by Kristen Hannah and I was so caught up in the story. I was caught between needing to know what happens to the main character and not wanting it to end. Hours after finishing it, I “rewound” to listen to the last part again.
Today I read a gripping piece in the NYT Magazine called This Is the Holocaust Story I Said I Wouldn’t Write and I was moved in the way that Anne Frank moved me as a child. As I was by The Nightingale, The Book Thief, and All the Light We Cannot See.
I’m almost finished reading The Thursday Murder Club, which I may have read about on your blog or Materfamilias Writes. I am looking forward to finding out who did it.
Glad you had a good trip, Dottie. Hope you are recovered now. And happy that you’re enjoying Thursday Murder Club. 🙂
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