And Now For Something Completely Different… Reading
Ha ha, I know- it seems like all I’ve been talking about lately is reading. But, Elisabeth and Stephany recently had interesting posts about reading, and I have THINGS TO SAY! Growing up, I was a classic bookworm. I was shy, introverted, and I was always, always reading. My best friend also loved to read, and one of our favorite things to do was go to the library. We would stop at the drugstore first (yes, this was the 1970s and we called it a “drugstore”) where we each got a big bag of candy. Then we would go to the library, browse through the YA section, and settle down in a cozy nook to read and eat. One time, we decided to leave the library briefly (probably to get something to eat that WASN’T CANDY). But we didn’t want to check out our books and carry them with us. We also didn’t want to leave the books there, in case someone else found them and checked them out. We had a brilliant idea, which was to “hide” our books in the bathroom. Imagine our chagrin when we returned and our books were GONE! Imagine the librarian’s chagrin at having to re-shelve 20+ books that had been found sitting on the bathroom floor. Ha- we were terrible. In middle school, I was constantly getting in trouble for reading a book in my lap while the teacher was talking. Special apologies to my seventh grade US History teacher. That was the year I discovered Agatha Christie, and I could not put her books down- even after I had already been yelled at for reading during class. Moving forward to high school- I read everything. I read “dumb books” (teen romances), I read classics (like Theodore Dreiser’s An American Tragedy) and everything in between. I didn’t like fantasy or science fiction, although I did read the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy to impress a boyfriend at one point. Moving into my 20s- I read so many classics. Jane Austen, Tolstoy, Proust… Yep, I was a nerd! Over time my tastes changed. I read Harry Potter with my son (still my favorite books of all time) and that opened me up to fantasy. My son also got me interested in science fiction, and I’ll be trying out horror this summer- Stephen King’s Holly is on my TBR. But really, I’ve come back around to my first love- mysteries. There doesn’t need to be a detective tiptoeing around with a magnifying glass- I just like a story with some mysterious aspect. Some plot point that we don’t understand, but will be revealed by the end- that’s my kind of book. I do all my reading in print. I don’t listen to audiobooks or own a kindle. I just love having an actual book where I turn the pages and use a bookmark. And I track my reading the old fashioned way- with paper and pen. I have a page in my planner for my TBR and more pages to write down the books I’ve read. Please answer some questions (I really want to know!) Were you a bookworm growing up? What’s your favorite genre? Did you ever hide books in the bathroom of the library? – Ha ha… hopefully the answer to that is “no.” Audio, kindle or paper books? How do you track your reading? Top photo by Clay Banks on Unsplash