Books

Fact: I do not trust people who say that do not like reading.  Now, this is not the same as when people say “I don’t like books” (which I also find to be mistrustful not but as much as the former).  Maybe they prefer books on tape or reading graphic novels or comic books.  Maybe they like being read to by a friend or a partner, maybe they like newspapers or articles from journals.  But saying “I do not like reading” is like putting the nail in the coffin of any relationship I could have had with that person.

Fact: I come from a family of readers.  Now many people can say that, and maybe it’s not that special, but I honestly believe it is in my blood to love reading.  I grew up watching my grandparents read in their chairs.  My Memere read mostly Romance but that is not to say she did not dabble in other genres.  My Pepere was a huge non-fiction junky.  He read biographies of famous figures and books about historical time periods.  It is because of him that my love and respect for history began.

But more so than anyone else in my family, I watched my parents read.  My dad in his younger years could finish a book faster than anyone I know.  His true love is hard science fiction but he’ll read almost anything.  My mom is a slower reader but no less enthusiastic.  I watched my parents read the paper every morning and listened as they read to us every night before we went to bed.

I have fond memories related to certain books.  I remember places based on what I was reading at the time, I remember friends because we shared the same excitement over the same pages.  I first read Harry Potter at the age of nine in upstate New York in a home owned by my mother’s best friend.  I read it out loud with my mom on a scratchy couch in a place that smelled old and loved in the middle of nowhere.  Most of our vacations are us just sitting around in couches and chairs reading silently.  That’s what happens when your family is made up of introverts.

Fact: While I said I understood why some people do not like books, I’m probably never going to be with someone that feels that way.  Mostly because the people I have met that feel that way, I don’t have very much in common with.  I read every day, I write down my favorite quotes from books as well as the days I started and ended it, and I think about other adventures the characters are having long after I have closed the cover.  I reread certain books every year, and yes, every time I do, I always find something different.

Fact: I talk about Harry Potter almost every day.  

Fact: Right now I am reading “Citizens of London: The Americans Who Stood With Britain In Its Darkest, Finest Hour.”  I really like historical non-fiction...

And to end, these are some books/plays/epics in no particular order (except for the top two which I reread every year) that mean a lot to me.

Fahrenheit 451 – Ray Bardbury

Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe – Fanny Flagg

Howl’s Moving Castle - Diana Wynn Jones

Song of Soloman – Toni Morrison

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn – Mark Twain

Green Eggs and Ham – Doctor Seuss

The Harry Potter Series – J.K. Rowling

Arcadia – Tom Stoppard

The Odyssey – Homer

A Midsummer Night’s Dream – William Shakespeare