Reasons to Read

 

Coming from a reading family, reading was as natural as eating, if not more so.

My grandparents and parents would devour the conservative Boston Herald delivered daily to the house. Books were every where. 

My grandmother would set a timer to 15 minute intervals for her to do whatever she needed to do and then read to me for 15 minutes. I suspect she fudged the time. 

Some of my early favorites were Thorton W. Burgess's animals stories, Jack and Jill Magazine, fairy tales,  The Bobbsey Twins and the series about twin children in different countries, which in hindsight were xenophobic, but created in me a life long wish to live in different countries. I'll do another blog on the writer Lucy Fitch Perkins after this blog.

People, whom I'm friends with, roommates, husbands are all readers. 

My reading is eclectic: the two books I've read in the last week are Jake Tapper/Alex Thompson's Original Sin and Martha Hall Kelly's Martha's Vineyard Beach and Book Club, two books on different ends of reading spectrum.

Original Sin, left me depressed, not because it was badly written, but because it confirmed how badly my birth country was on the path to self destruction. Worse, it confirmed what I always suspected. I love being right, but I so wanted to be wrong.

Martha's Vineyard had been discovered on the table at Geneva's Pages and Sips, an English book store. We'd just finished our scones and tea when I spied it. No way was I leaving without it.

The more I travel, the more I like revisiting places I've been in books: Europe, Syria, Ireland, U.S., Canada and UK, especially Scotland. The locale adds to the story. Some places, I hope to return in reality as well in pages.

My favorite fiction is when the characters in the book move in with me for the two to three days it takes to read a book. They can be of any era as far back as The Cave of the Clan bear books, which my late anthropology friend says is realistic to events in D.C. last year.

Coming from Boston, I knew the Vineyard well and many of the places mentioned, I've visited. I  could almost smell the sea and feel the sand under my feet. What I didn't expect the book to be set in 1942, my birth year. Living in war time with a German sub off the coast, along with rationing was a surprise. 

When I was doing a Ph.D. in creative writing, my reader (it was what they call mentors at the University of Lancaster) hated that I mentioned food. I use food to show character. Someone who wants lentils over steak, is an insight. 

I loved the fruit pies and cookies in this book. I will never read a Louise Penny book when hungry because of all the food from tea in bowls with fresh baked croissants to gourmet meals. 

I never finished the degree, feeling that my reader was destroying everything I was trying to say. He threatened that the book Family Value, my submission for the degree, was unpublishable. He was wrong. It was published. The time spent wasn't a loss. The concept of keeping notes for the book required for the degree, I used later, adapting it to Lexington: Anatomy of a Novel.

So what are reasons to read? I can go into different worlds, some I have been, some I want to go, and some I would never want to go. I can examine history, politics, science. Also economics (less so, but enough to dip my toe into its waters), geography, human motivation, and much more. Reading calls my attention to details; colors, scenery, tastes, smells, feels that makes every day in real life richer.