“The truth is, I’ve got a monkey on my back, a habit worse than marijuana though not as expensive as heroin. I can stiff it out and get to sleep anyway…….. The fact is I am a compulsive reader. Thirty-five cents’ worth of Gold Medal Original will put me right to sleep. Or Perry Mason. But I’ll read the ads in an old Paris-Match that has been used to wrap herring, before I’ll do without.” Robert A. Heinlein, Glory Road.
My name is Sarah A. Hoyt, and I’m a reader. Unlike my struggle with writing, which more closely resembles an unhappy love affair, where I’ve walked away several times, only to be pulled back by the stories that form spontaneously in my head, I can’t say I’ve tried very hard to give up reading.
This is weird, because any way you look at it, reading is expensive. And like with any drug, once you’re good and hooked on a series, you’ll do anything to get the next fix. Anything, including but not limited to spending the grocery money for the week because, well, you can live without eating for a week, but you can’t live without reading for a day.
You know you’re an addict when you face this dilemma and the little voice at the back of your head goes all helpful. “Buy it,” it says. “Think about it. Food you can only eat once, but books you can re-read for years. You are holding cumulative days of enjoyment in your fingers. Buy it, I say.” (If this were the little cartoon demon sitting on my left shoulder, he’d be wearing glasses and carrying his own little book.)
Part of it, as in any addiction, is habit. I won’t say that I don’t remember a time I couldn’t read, because it’s not precisely true. But it’s only not precisely true because I also remember learning to walk. So I remember lying on my stomach on a sun-warmed patio with a stack of comic books and trying to remember what the words were that my brother had read to me when I last had that book in hand. I know I was reading – and attempting to write – by four. For this my brother – nine years older and with no resistence to nagging – is largely to blame, since he read me those same comic books over and over again. It also helped that Portuguese is largely phonetic. But most of the blame must go to my parents who had absolutely no concept of “age appropriate reading.”
When I entered fifth grade, I was shocked to find most of my classmates were still reading lavishly illustrated books with more pictures than words, and on subjects as exciting as “Anita” (the girl who did everything in Portuguese children’s books) “Takes an airplane trip.” I’m not saying I didn’t read those too. Of course I did. Some of my less than clued relatives gave them to me for my birthday or Christmas. I didn’t mind, except that of course, they didn’t last very long at all. And by that time I was fully into Clifford Simak and Robert A. Heinlein and Asimov and Anderson and Rex Stout and Earle Stanley Gardner and Agatha Christie.
Actually birthdays and Christmas were a great source of annoyance. You see, my parents didn’t allow me to tell the sweet old relatives that I just wanted money. That was unmannerly. But as short on money for books as I always was, the best I could do out of those festive occasions, should the relatives be informed that I liked to read and read Science Fiction, was Jules Verne or H. G. Wells. Until I was old enough to go to school in the big city nearby and discovered I could exchange books at the bookstores, I read all of Verne and H. G. Well, of course. The problem was that they weren’t “real” science fiction. Not about the future as I’d like it to be. Also, the translations were often awful. But I read EVERYTHING.
I read Dumas (yes, all of them, even the ones that appear to have been paid by the word) and Sir Walter Scott and Twain. My parents eventually told my relatives that it would be easier to give me Portuguese Historical novels or history books. And even later, they sort of gave up and started giving me money to buy books.
By that time my brother and I were on an equal footing as addicts. Often the only money we could spare would buy us half of that month’s science fiction release (one book per month, yes.) To this day he chortles that my marrying an American saved us the epic fight we’d otherwise have had over who got to keep those part-ownership books.
Portugal doesn’t have – or didn’t in my day – public lending libraries. Not even subscription libraries as those found in Regency England. It has a public library but it is more like our library of congress. And every new school I entered had what they called a “library”, usually stocked by some well meaning lady in the previous century. So, did I read the manuals of young ladies’ deportment and lives of saints that those mostly consisted of? Duh. They were print. And any print is better than going without. BUT being me and unable to leave well enough alone, I thought of all those kids who wouldn’t be so lucky as to come from a family of bibliophiles with hundreds of books laid by and hidden everywhere from the attic to the potato cellar. Every school I ever attended I started a library club which held fundraisers to buy books, and which requested of the parents one book for the library, in commemoration of their kid’s graduation. Even in college, I vastly improved the American Library. Okay, at least I filled it with Science Fiction. I think it was an improvement. (I’ve wondered, if I can get the address, if we could convince Baen to donate to it.)
When I became an exchange student, in 12th grade, for the first time I entered a house with no books. No, this is no disparagement of my host family. My host mother, particularly, was very kind to me and responsible for who I am today. But they weren’t readers. Not really. My host brother and sister read magazines, but that was about it.
So… my first day in the US, in Stow Ohio, I made them take me to a bookstore. I bought Assignment In Eternity. Then I found the public library. You lucky sons and daughters, you don’t know how good you have it. I volunteered at the library because then I could check out unlimited books. And I did.
When I found myself newly wed and broke, we set aside 3 quarters of our entertainment money for books. And like all junkies, we quickly discovered where we could get the most book for the money.
Now, when I’m hard pressed and under the gun, I might just reread the familiar, so that I can put it down and go back to work. A riveting book can cost me five hours work time, you know? I start it and then have to finish it. Heck, I can only exercise to audio books, which is costing me a small fortune.
And yet, I don’t want to be cured. Let them say we read this much because we can’t handle reality. I say reality is for wusses who can’t handle fiction.
According To Hoyt 
I’m a book addict so please give me free books. [Wink]
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Here ya go! http://www.gutenberg.org/ (Includes vintage Norton, Bradley, and Piper, to name a few!)
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Both The Spouse and The Daughter are bibloholics.
The Daughter was home schooled from mid-sixth grade through High School graduation. Project Gutenberg was her friend. Only problem was when I had her draw up the list of books she has read to submit to colleges. I had to tell her to only include those which she ‘studied’ because few if anyone outside of this crowd would have believed the list. She replied curtly that she already had…
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I don’t want to be cured, either. No way.
The way I had heard the phrase as your last line, Sarah is “Reality is for people who can’t handle science fiction.”
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Great message! Well done!
BTW, Denver Public Library has audio books available for download (Tom does this a lot). Yep. Saves a fortune!
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Main library page (sorry I left it out) http://denverlibrary.org/
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Hi my name is Tim and I am a book addict!! I usually have a book or 2 in my work bag as well as my ereader( less weight to carry and I drive a big rig!!) and when I am waiting I have a book in my hand.
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My addicition is an inherited condition. I cannot remember anyone in the house not reading for any length of time. Dad was the closest to a non-reader, in that he seldom read novels; but every night he read the newspaper front to back, and every month he read Reader’s Digest and the UAW magazine and a couple of others front to back.
My brothers (6 and 12 years older than me) thought having a little brother and sister was great fun, because it let them teach us stuff they already knew, like how to read. So they taught us before we ever saw the inside of a school. The very first word I ever read on my own without someone teaching it to me first was “Wheaties”. They had taught me letter sounds, and so I sounded out those big white letters and discovered they told me that my favorite cereal was in that big red box. There was no stopping me once I figured out the sounding out trick. I quickly took up my brothers’ hand-me-down comics and car magazines and books.
The first real tragedy in my life (at least to my young eyes) was when I took one of their books on a family trip to Chicago and accidentally left it there. I was inconsolable, and I demanded we drive four hours back to get it. Mom wouldn’t give in to that. Instead she said, “There are lots of books in the house. Why don’t you read these? They’re mysteries, too!” And that introduced me to the wonderful concept that you can read more than one book at a time; and it also introduced me to Frank and Joe Hardy, which became my addiction for their first 50 books or so,
And after that, I realized I could read ANY book in the house. Mom and Dad built the whole house themselves, and Mom designed it. The north wall of the living room had one hearth-to-ceiling bookcase built in; and long before I was born, it was full. I could read any book I could reach. That meant I discovered “Stranger in a Strange Land” way too early to understand it; but I also discovered “The Pocket Book of Science Fiction” (the first SF anthology ever, I later discovered) and “The Post Reader of Fantasy and Science Fiction”. But most important, the bottom shelf of the bookcase was specially designed to hold the complete Encyclopedia Britannica plus a series of their Books of the Year. The next shelf up held Britannica Junior; but I soon learned disdain for those. Those were “kids’ books”, and I wanted REAL books. I whiled away many a Saturday afternoon sitting on that hearth with half a dozen encyclopedia volumes open at once so I could skip from one to another to follow references. (Is it any wonder I typically have 20 browser tabs open today?)
When I was in college, my loving parents gave me a Christmas gift one year: a $50 bill and a push in the direction of Borders Books. That was when there was just the one Borders, the original store in Ann Arbor. (Heck, that was back when there WAS a Borders.) To give you an idea of how long ago that was, that $50 bought an entire grocery bag of paperbacks.
It was also the first time I knew that bookstores had grocery bags behind the counter. Grocery bags with the store logo printed on them. So I suspect our addiction isn’t all that uncommon…
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HI Martin — pologies for going completely off-topic, but I could not find another way of contacting you. The HumanWaveSF site has gone completely blank. Is it AWOL, or did it achieve enlightenment? Inquiring minds want to know. Okay, just me.
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Sabrina,
When I grabbed that URL, it was with an explicit promise to turn it over to Sarah and company whenever they were ready for it. I thought it was too good to let slide, and I was afraid someone would “claim jump” it and then demand some high price to transfer it. (Plus I’m a compulsive domain buyer: if I think I might ever find a use for a great name and that name is available, I tend to buy it.) So as soon as I got it, I informed Sarah; and then through her I informed Charlie, as she said he would be responsible for the web hosting and site content in the long term.
About two weeks ago, Charlie and I finally connected on this, and I transferred the domain name over to him. Since that took it off my hosting plan, my placeholder content is no longer available there; and Charlie and Sarah being the busy people they are (people think I post a lot on Facebook, but I post less than 10% of what Charlie does!), they haven’t put new content up. But Sarah has assured me they have Evil Plans in the works once schedules permit.
At some point, I may repost my content as part of my MartinLShoemaker.com writing site. And you can always email me there: first name at that site will find me.
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Ah good! As long as it is *our* evil plans in action, I’m all for it. (Cancels black helicopter purchase order)
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Don’t ever cancel purchase orders for black helicopters, you never know when you’ll need one at short notice.
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And in a pinch, you can always repaint them in your team colors!
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All helicopters are black after midnight.
M
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Do you people know nothing? Have you no read Heinlein (genuflect)??? NEVER buy black helicopters. At least, never in your own name. Lease them. Preferably through a shell corporation … who gets them from a dummy corporation who has put title into another false front company owned by a dummy of a shell of an off-shore set-up. Make sure there are plenty of discounts, mark-ups, fees, finders’ fees, surcharges and rebates flowing money each way.
Ye gods – amateurs!
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Kettle Belly Baldwin, is that you?
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Squeeee. Ooooooo. Evil plans! Yipee!
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Oh, damn, folks, I’m sorry. I’m editing a book as well as doing the day job and this just pushed down out of sight. Martin, let me have the content — you could share it on Dropbox.
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This is why I haven’t bugged you about UML. I have a very well-attuned busy detector, and I can generally tell when someone is swamped.
I have to go visit my mom in the hospital: bad news because she has pancreatitis and has to go without food and water until the flare-up passes; good news because it means I’ll have access to the hospital’s much faster WiFi network!
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I could read any book I could reach.
I was a climber. My parents soon found out that the book shelves that my father had built along the wall and out into the rooms (yes!) were really quite sturdy.
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I suspect that if I tried listening to audio books while I was out walking i’d get hit by a car at least once a year. Likewise for crashing my car if i listened to them while driving.
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Heh. Friday night I walked in an American Cancer Society Relay for Life event. My niece was a team captain, so I volunteered. I told her I could walk for 3 hours, and she wondered how I could keep at it for so long without getting bored walking around the same track over and over. Simple! I brought my Kindle Fire, I dialed up to a larger font, and I read as I walked. It was a nice, level track with most of the people all walking in the same direction (with maybe 5% nonconformists), so I could spare most of my attention for the book. I walked 3 hours (10 miles!) in the dark, and I never had a single collision. And I read 40% of the latest Writers of the Future volume!
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Mom used to tell the tale of how, when she was a middle-schooler in Pompton Lakes, NJ, during WWII, she’d check out five books from the public library and read two of them on the walk home.
Yeah. I come by my biblioholism honestly.
M
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I’m known to read while walking, but have always felt bad about it. But recently, while reading accounts of early 19th century Catholic priests in the US, I found out that it was fairly common for priests on journeys to read their Office in their breviaries while walking. One priest recorded walking from Mt. St. Mary’s seminary in Emmitsburg, Maryland to Baltimore. Over the course of his fifty-some mile journey, he read not only his breviary, but a history of France, some Cicero, and some chapters of the New Testament. On the fifty-some miles back, the wind was blowing so hard that he only managed to read a pamphlet and the required bits of Office. This all seems pretty impressive on a rough and steep road, even if your feet do find their own way.
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When Daddy was in Law School, Momma would wait on the front porch to catch him as he walked by reading, as he had on a number of occasions walked right by the house and on up the street until he hit the dead end. He was also know to fall asleep reading, still turning pages. Momma would wake him up and he had to back up to what he last remembered reading.
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I hereby swear and avow that I have NEVER ONCE walked past my own house while reading a book … at least, not by more’n two or three lots, which is really just rounding error.
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I spent a lot of time almost getting killed in Porto (think NYC level traffic, worse streets) while walking from train station to college (an hour) reading (usually sf) books.
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Whatever you do — do not try and drive late while listening to Tony Robinson’s audio readings of Terry Pratchett. I had convulsions while listening to Moving Pictures which made it impossible to keep a steady foot on the accelerator and I almost drove off the road. On the other hand, althought it was late at night, I certainly was in no risk of falling asleep I was laughing so hard.
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My name is Richard and I am a biblioholic. I regularly consume words, either as illuminated pixels or print-outs thereof, as magazines and newspapers and paperback books but, when I can get it I prefer the hard stuff.
Family legend includes the tale of the summer my older brother wrote home from camp to complain about me. He, being the first-born and responsible son, felt it incumbent to advise our parents that I was wasting their money, spending all my time at this wonderful camp with my nose in a book. They had a number of the original Tom Swift adventures in the camp library and Heinlein and …
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Sounds like a wonderful camp indeed!
When I was much younger and MUCH smaller, my family would sometimes find me hiding behind the couch. Well, not EXACTLY hiding: laying down and reading. There was a me-sized space back there, and the light at the end of the couch reached back there, and I was out of the way and unlikely to be disturbed.
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I too am a reading addict. There is only one place I refuse to keep books (the bathroom) for the simple reason that if I take a book in there, I won’t leave until the book is finished, and the seat has attached itself to my legs.
This does not stop me attempting to read anything and everything with print on it.
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Hello, my name is Inigo. . . Sorry, wrong thread. Any way, I too am a reading addict, as is the rest of the family. My parents built a library onto the house, which became so over filled that they gave over 3000 volumes to a regional county library . . . and it is stacked two deep again. My worst habit is justifying non-fiction by saying, “I could use this for teaching.” Fiction? After my last binge I’ve put that on hold until I get some other things sorted out, but there is always room for non-fiction (budget permitting). You never know if you will see the book available again/as cheap used/on sale/while you can remember the author’s name.
The last time I relocated, the movers were thrilled that I didn’t have a big TV or sofa set. Then they started moving carton of books. And more cartons. And still more.
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Reading, for me, is like breathing — a necessity!
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Hello, my name is Travis and I am a reading addict. My father didn’t read much, but my mom used to read books to me in the evenings when I was a child, when I was in second grade I was stuck home one day and it was raining, I wanted my mom to read to me but she was busy, so she told me I could read the book myself. I laid on the living room floor that day and read The Swiss Family Robinson (unabridged version) in its entirety. As they say the rest is history, I soon went through the rest of the house reading anything that was available, since I was an only child there wasn’t a lot of childrens reading material available, so I read adult books, and by the time I was in fourth grade I had read every book written by Louis L’amour, (my mom liked him) after which I tried other western authors but was sorely disappointed, along about this time a friend introduced me to Anne McCaffery’s Pern books, and shortly thereafter I discovered Edgar Rice Burroughs, so I was introduced to SF. I don’t recall what other SF authors I tried at that time, but apparantly they were not good, because after reading everything I could get my hands on by Anne McCaffery and ERB I decided they were the only SF writers I liked and moved onto other genres, and I was out of high school before I read anymore SF. SF may be my favorite genre now, but I still don’t read any westerns except when I reread a Louis L’amour, but read practically every other genre. And if you penned me in a room with nothing but pulp slash westerns I would read them just to have something to read (I’ve been known to read labels on canned food because that was all there was to read before)
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Oh hey, this must be where the meeting of Libroholics Onymous (hey, it’s not like we hide our addiction, right?) is being held. Right, then. Hi, my name is Robin, and I’m a book addict.
I started reading at an age most child development experts wouldn’t believe. My parents inform me (and I believe them) that I was correctly recognizing certain letters before I was 18 months old, and by age 3 or so I was already starting to read on my own. The Poky Little Puppy, The Little Red Hen, Richard Scarry’s Best Word Book Ever… these books became old friends to me. As I got older, I read nearly every book my parents had, and discovered an intense love for books that stimulated the imagination, especially fantasy and science fiction. In fact, I still remember how, at age seven or so, I used to sneak into the (wooden) closet that was under my bunk bed, hoping that this time it would let me into Narnia. By high school, I had a book-a-day habit, and the only reason I don’t still read at least one book every day is because life has piled other obligations on me (my boss actually expects me to show up for work and get work done at the office, for example). But just to give you some idea: I just finished one of the books I’ve been reading, so my “currently in the middle of reading” is down to only three. The “pick this one up next” list is still in double digits, though.
And no, I don’t wanna be cured either!
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*choruses* Hi Robin!
Not only are we addicts that don’t hide our addictions but we really like to SHARE it with others. I am an incorrigible book pusher who just yesterday introduced a friend to the 1632 series and the Vorkosigan series via the Baen Free Library and the Baen CDs. Jim Baen was a book pusher par excellence! (here kid, the first ones free!)
My best book addict story is from a few years ago when Robin here (yes its a small world) came into town for a few days and wanted to borrow the newest David Weber book to read before he left town at the end of the week. He rightly assumed I would have already purchased it in HB and also assumed that I would have finished it since it _had_ been out for a month. I had to admit i hadn’t really gotten around to reading it yet since well I had met this girl and well we were spending all evening every day chatting online and well… Everyone there knew i was Doomed and they were right. We are now happily married though Sarah gets annoyed at me sometimes for introducing her to new series to try out (I started her on Vorkosigan on Friday evening and she is already done with the 1st Miles omnibus…)
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Aaaaahhh. I feel so much better… Half-Price Books started right here in my home town, Dallas, Texas, back in the 1970s… it was obviously serendipitous that we came together at the same place and time. Nothing gets my heart pounding in quite the same day as walking into the main store, heading back to the sci-fi section and finding a nice rolling rack standing in the aisle with the sign “CLEARANCE” perched on top! I know for certain that I missed hundreds of books that were published in the 1950s (not many, mind you). This is one of my favorite places to discover authors new to me. A large, happily heavy bag of books that is coming home to be devoured is one of my favorite things.
As a child, my father, sister and I went to the Public Library two times a month. We could each check out 10 books. 3 times 10 equals 30. These books were ours for two weeks, but we could call in and renew them for an additional two weeks, so we had 3 people, 30 books and 30 days. At 12 they finally issued me an adult library card because they knew for a fact I had read every single book in the children’s section. We didn’t each read every book every month; my sister and I were not all that interested in my dad’s Zane Grey books, but all the science fiction that came into the house was devoured and turf wars were fought over who got to read what next!
Of course, I got funny looks at school when we had to write the names of all the books we read on a chart the teacher kept at the front of the class for every month, and month after month my list ran off the bottom of the chart. That was okay. I knew I was different – I went to other planets and became other people on a regular basis while my friends played with Barbies and baseball. Did I mention I don’t tan well? ;)
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Suddenly this place makes me feel so… normal…
(This is a very unfamiliar feeling.)
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My parents used the Glen Doman Teach Your Baby To Read book stuff on me. My mother claims I was reading second grade level at age two, but I don’t remember this. (I do know that I read automatically if I lay eyes on text. Word go into the brain, fwoosh!) I do know I was reading Darkover, Pern, Xanth, and a very particular copy of Robin Hood when I was… 5? 6? 7 at most.
I used the same techniques for my kid, although I didn’t always do the “do ’em fast and put ’em away” thing with the word-cards. Desperate for Lack Of Fussing, at least once, I went through twenty or thirty word-cards, whilst the kid sat on my lap and watched, raptly.
Now… She and I read at approximately two paperback books page per minute, once we get going. My spouse was mildly… dismayed. He reads at only one page-per-minute, and had always been the fastest reader he knew.
It’s very nice that it’s apparently not just memetic; the addiction can be deliberately fostered in the helpless, bored infant… ;)
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We should all pay homage to the Sage of Butler and his character (?Deety Burroughs?) in (?The Number of the Beast?) who averred that she could NOT start her day without reading material over breakfast. ANYthing. “Words in a row. I’ll read the cereal box.”
Testify, sister! I’ve read cereal boxes aplenty.
M
I apologize for not remembering accurately, but my books are packed away in storage. Trust me, I feel the lack.
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And I just found Kindlenationdaily. Which lists what ebooks for Kindle are free on a daily basis. Oh dear…
Have to buy a Kindle e-reader one of these days. I just ‘bought’ (well, they were all 0.00 dollars so buying just doesn’t quite sound like the right word to use) something like 60 to 70 books, and my Kindle for Mac crashed and refuses to work now, so I have to use Cloudreader which I like even less. But an actual Kindle, now, well, I could lounge on the sofa or the more comfortable chair or even go to a cafe…
And I’m not sure if I will ever even read all of the ones I have already, and I’ll probably keep on checking daily because, hey, free books, and… and…
… and then there are all the other ones which are soo cheap.
How much can you keep in one Kindle? Will I need two? Or more?
Help!
And I thought my book buying was out of control even before this. /:
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you can store the ones you’re not reading on the computer and on your Amazon account, both. I do. The kindle I have holds something like 400 books?
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An ebook is usually in the 0.5 to 1MB size depending on the illustration count and complexity, words themselves are a small part of the ebook’s size. The basic 80$ kindle 4 has 2GB of storage and the 100$ Kindle Touch or Kindle Keyboard have 4GB. So you can have 2000+ ebooks on even the basic 80$ and double that on the pricier models.
The extra space on the more expensive models isn’t because they expect you to have that many books on them, its because unlike the cheapest unit they can play audio books. Audio take up a LOT more room than text does.
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Ah. I have a cheap mp3 player for audiobooks, and use ALL that storage for books. mwahahahahahahah.
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Not only that: the Kindle Fire also plays movies. Much as I love my books, I also have loaded onto mine the three movies I simply MUST have available wherever I go, just in case I need to watch them again: “Hudson Hawk”, “Groundhog Day”, and “Moon”. That still leaves me room for around a thousand books, which is all I need with me at this time.
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True. I remember a time when I had to make similar choices. Do I buy this book or have dinner? Three guesses (and the first two don’t count) which way it usually went.
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yup, that’s me – reading habit, and I wouldn’t break it for the world. my first scifi was CS Lewis’ Out of the Silent Planet, when I was maybe…6?7?8?ish? – didn’t discover Heinlein until several years later. Didn’t realize there were people who hadn’t even heard of, much less read, the Lord of the Rings until I was in middle school, and was absolutely shocked.
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It’s been a long time since I read Out of the Silent Planet, I liked it a lot, unlike the Narnia books.
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I, too, have been logodicted since roughly forever, but I find that I am more content with rereading in my dotage. I look at new books and authors now for rereadability — mostly the ability to play clever games with the language. Somewhat to my surprise, I even (finally) read Jane Austen. She’s not bad — not a Pratchett, though.
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I didn’t read until I was six years old and then I never put a book down. My parents decided that I was addicted to reading so there was a time when they would take away my books and try and make me play softball. I rebelled.
I would hide the books under my bed, under my shirt, and any where else where I could read where my parents wouldn’t see me. When they locked up all the books, I would sit in the bathroom and read labels on the lysol and other cleaning materials.
So I am proud to say I am an addict. I was appalled when a writer I know said that she never liked to read books. My opinion is that you need to read to be able to write well.
Cyn
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Cyn
My parents took my books away during final exam week. I knew it was coming, so I would “seed” books throughout the house, in places they never looked. I usually ended up reading ten or so books at once throughout exams week. Oh, and my mom tried to make me read less so I’d be more social in my teens…
Let’s say that it didn’t work and leave it at that.
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I actually did read less and was much more social in my late teens. Considering how I was being social (partying and getting in trouble) I’m sure my parents would have prefered me reading.
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With apologies to Jeff Foxworthy:
“If you watch the anime OVA _Read Or Die_, and find yourself wondering why people think it’s funny, You Might Be A Reader….”
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I absolutely love the original Read Or Die. I have often joked that The Daughter was Yomiko Readman. Talk about gateway drugs…
.
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O.K. I admit it, I was spoiled, and did not even begin to take full advantage of it. I grew up in a house full of books and within easy walking distance of the Philadelphia Free Library’s main branch on the Parkway. I simply thought that was what life was supposed to be like.
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But most of the blame must go to my parents who had absolutely no concept of “age appropriate reading.”
I was going to keep lurking until this.
Absolutely correct. I was classified as unable to read because I “couldn’t” read the books they gave me. (Realty: I was very…stubborn. And the books were utterly moronic to someone who’d grown up on retellings of Lord of the Rings.)
Best way to get someone hooked on reading? Give them a wide range of options, tell them it’s alright to not finish reading something they don’t like, read the same books they are and back off. If they want to talk, talk to them about it. (Thank you, Mom, for going through all the horrible fluff I love as popcorn reads… and loving it, too.)
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I believe I was in first grade (so maybe around 7) when I finished my first Nancy Drew book (my first “big book”). IIRC, it took me two weeks because, at the time, I was a hoydenish outdoorsy sort of girl who climbed trees and played Indians in the copse of trees.
I was proud of myself (I knew very well that it was somewhat unusual for a girl my age to be reading a book of that length on her own), so I padded out in my flannel housecoat to the balcony where my mom and dad were standing, my dad’s arm around my mom and my mom’s head on his shoulder. They were watching the sunset and may have been drinking coffee. “I finished it!” I said, showing them the book. I can’t remember which of them had recommended it to me, but I remember trying to make an effort of showing them I appreciated the recommendation by telling them immediately.
My dad smiled and in a very casual way replied with, “That’s great. Now read another.” and turned back again to look out over the little German town we were living in at the time.
I stood there a few moments, sort of shocked and a little taken aback by the fully anticlimactic response. So I went back and started on the next.
My parents now joke off and on that they probably shouldn’t have reacted that way. I have books piled two or three deep everywhere. There are books on the computer desk, books in the curio cabinet, books in two different specifically-bookshelves, books on my nightstand, books in the cabinet under my nightstand, books on a shelf in my bathroom. Hell, there are probably more books elsewhere in my room and I just hadn’t thought of the location yet because I’ve stopped “seeing” them. And I’m not even going to mention the books packed away in the attic, or the “house” bookshelves. I think there are even some of my books under my parents’ bed since they’d agreed to store them there while a friend visited and I’m too nervous of spiders to rescue them.
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Y’all are aware that book-lined walls are an extremely effective obstacle to fallout? Therefore it is only sensible to protect your family by …
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My home recording studio is in the library. Book lined walls make excellent sound absorbent walls. They keep our street noise quite well, and give the music a softer tone.
The window in that room has pillows taped over it. I don’t mind if a pillow gets wet and mildews. I’d freak if it happened to a book!
Wayne
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LOL. Well… I was an outdoorsy sort of girl, too. I don’t think I had any unbroken skin on my knees till I was 14. But we didn’t own a television until I was eight, so in winter and when it was too cold to be out, there was nothing for it but read. By that time, the habit had been formed.
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Even a re-read can cost me time. I have to watch my daily schedule. I really do. Or I can spend all day reading.
Wayne
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I remember reading how to put rouge on your face, and since at the time I was probably in the fourth grade, and I am not a girl….you may assume that my addiction is strong. Yes, I’ve read cereal boxes, and even reread them.
Right now, I’m happy that my local library just got about ten HB Baen books.
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I think I just found a new “favorite” website.
I grew up just outside a small (not even on the map) town in Louisiana in the 50’s and 60’s. My dad worked for the railroad to pay the bills, and we raised animals and a garden to supplement the larder (along with hunting, fishing, and ‘gathering’). I had plenty to do, and dozens of wide-open acres to do it in.
I still became a book addict.
My most memorable Christmas present was a complete set of the Readers’ Digest books for young readers – mostly biographies – when I was eight. When we moved into our current home in Colorado Springs from Germany, we shipped 17 boxes of books, and I was grossly overweight in my household allowance. That cost! Today, we have probably twenty bookcases in the house, all stuffed to the brim. That includes more than 500 nonfiction books, enough paperbacks to make a second-hand bookstore envious, and a collection of Reader’s Digest condensed books that only lacks 17 being complete from the first one to 2005 or so.
I can definitely be blamed for my wife’s addiction, and also my oldest daughter’s. My addiction has reached the point now that if I can’t find something entertaining to read, I’ll WRITE something. My wife is dyslexic, and has found that audiobooks don’t confuse things like printed books do. We’re definitely into ebooks now: I have a Nook, and she has a Kindle Fire. I’ve also discovered “Calibre”, and the ability to convert books from various formats into something I can read. I’ve told my wife I want to be buried with a book in my hand, so I’ll have something to do while waiting for St. Peter…
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