A Few Comments on Books

I grew up a child of solitude.  I had 'older' parents and my father could not stand much noise going on aoound.  I learned to be quiet our of self-preservation.  When we moved to West Van Lear, Ky I was not at all used to being around other kids.  That did not much matter because I was not allowed to associate with them outside of school as one of the few things my parents agreed on was, "anyone and everyone, would be a bad influence on me".

So, my interaction with my 'peers' was limited to two recesses and one lunch period.  Those two recesses and one lunch period were not happy times for me.  Just another push toward a life of solitude. 

I'm not sure what my age was when I started to 'read for pleasure'.  Maybe the third grade.  But, I can say for sure it was in the fourth grade I started reading 'adult' level literature.  (Also where I fell in love with my first black woman, but that is another story for another time.)  In slow times during class I'd read items out of the encyclopedias or learn new words from the dictionary.

I also discovered the great, unexplored world of the 'Western Novel'.  I'd read anything I could get my hands on but the 'Western' was my first venture into adult literature.  I absolutely adored Zane Grey and read Max Brand more because it was a western than because I enjoyed im.  (Just as a matter of FYI he is the author who created 'Dr. Kildare'.  A popular TV Soap Opeara of the time.)  I read somewhere he averaged a novel every two weeks.

I'm not sure where I was (gradewise) when I discovered Sci-Fi.  The names, Asimov, Clark, Heinlein, Anderson, Dick (Phillip K.) and many others opened up new worlds of the future and a different take on what was and was not popular, to me.  I still feel the need to go back and read some of their classics.  They feel like old friends and home to me now.

Being a social outcast left me plenty of time to read.  Having a high WPM and comprehension skill meant I'd fly through books.    Mostly all the Sci-Fi I could get my hands on but biographies as well.  I read every bio of every Yankee player I could get my hands on.  I'm still a Yankee fan as much as I am a fan of any pro team. 

I read histories and historical fiction.  And when I did not have anything new to read I re-read whatever I had at hand.  I am so devoted to reading I can't go to the supper table without a book (Now a Kindle), I can't even contain myself to one book.  I generally have a book open in every room of the house so I don't have to hunt for anything.

In my later years I discovered heroic fantasy.  My sophomore home room teacher loaned me his copy of "The Hobbit".  "The Lord of the Rings" was a revelation.  One weekend when I was in Norway for work I read the entire triology.  Take away my books?  I'd rather you just killed me.  It would be much easier to deal with.

Even later in life I discovered Sir Terry Pratchett.  I have just about everything he has written and the re's in re-re-re-re reading have become too many to try to keep track of.  Yet I still read history, historical novels, mysteries, thrillers, Spy stories (Len Deighton is the BEST followed by John Le'Carre)  I just cannot get my mind around the idea of people who do not like to read because everything is found there. There is the present, the past, the future, things that might be and things that might have been.  There are the stars of our own solar system and the myriad of stars in our galaxy and throughout the universe.  Everyting that has every been done or even thought of is in a book somewhere.  How can anyone not love to read?  Its beyond me.

So, what am I reading now?  A book I  picked up in the Miami Airport on the way back from Curacao, a book about Daniel Boone, A novel about Nefertititi disappearing, Aesop's Fables, a story of a boy from the Ky backwoods, a novel about Judas and the 'betrayal' of Jesus and several others.  I am unable to confine myself to one book or even one genre' at once.

I can sit for hours with my hands idle but I cannot go five minutes without needing a book in my hands.