Bookworm

by Ang

I have always loved to read. Even when I was a kid. My mom used to read to me and my brother and every night we would pick a classic Golden Book for her to read. And we usually would pick ‘The Gingerbread Man and the Golden Goose’ because it was the longest one we had. And we would do anything to extend our ‘read a book before bed’ time.

We had a large collection of Little Golden Books and Dr. Seuss, but we always seemed to come back to this one. I know it was because of the length! Let’s face it, Dr. Seuss is great, but those can be read in under 2 minutes.

We joined the summer reading program every year. It was convenient because we lived about 2 blocks away from our local library. It was always so exciting to go at the beginning of the summer to sign up and pick up our packets, bookmarks and stickers. I remember walking to the library at least twice a week and being so excited to bring my borrowed books home, even though most of them I had already read at least once before.

I grew up with Judy Blume, Beverly Cleary (I had all of the Ramona books) and the Baby Sitters Club (Claudia was my favorite). Not to mention the other childhood classics – E.B. White, Laura Ingalls Wilder, Mark Twain, Daniel Defoe & Jonathan Swift.

As a teen, I read The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton at least five times. I read and loved O Pioneers by Willa Cather. I got into Agatha Christie, Jane Austen and the Brontes (Emily & Charlotte). I read To Kill a Mockingbird for the first time and have re-read it several times since. It holds a safe place on my ‘keeper’ bookshelf. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn became my favorite book (and still is).

And then I devoured the famous amazing masterpiece by Margaret Mitchell (which would later on become my all-time favorite movie).

As I got older, I expanded the genres that I would read. I started reading classics – Tolstoy, Dumas, Hemmingway, Dickins, Homer, and Hugo. J.D. Salinger. Nathaniel Hawthorne. F. Scott Fitzgerald. John Steinbeck. I could go on and on.

I started reading a lot of historical fiction, which became my favorite genre. I read more and more fiction novels, my favorite authors being Barbara Kingsolver and Elizabeth Berg. I also like Sandra Kring.

I also read lots of non-fiction. Currently I’m reading not one, but TWO biographies about Marie Antoinette (because one just didn’t seem like enough?). I’m also reading a biography by Norman Mailer. I like history books (which is great because my husband is a history buff and former history teacher and has tons of them!), especially ones about the Civil War.

I also love travel books. Not travel guides, but books about places. I was on a yacht in Alaska once and asked one of the crew members if she took tons of pictures. Because with that type of job, you travel all over the world. And she said she didn’t, instead she bought books on all of the places she’s been and visited. I thought that was a great idea. So I started doing that (although I still take lots of pictures) and now have a nice collection of books from places I’ve been to in the past few years.

Because I read so much, a few years back I started a book journal. I found that I was checking out the same books at the library, and not on purpose. I would start reading the book and then get that déjà-vu feeling like I had read it before. It’s because I had!

So I started keeping track of the books I read and I would write down a brief description of the book and whether or not I liked it or not. It has really helped! I usually take it with me to the library. I only wish that I would have started it as a kid. I would love to go back and see all of the books I’ve read since the age of 5!

On Tuesday after work I went to the library and got a library card! Most people wouldn’t get as excited as I do about this, but I just love the library. And I had to wait until I got my New Mexico drivers license before I could get my library card. (they need it for proof of residency). In fact, as soon as I got my license the first thing I thought was “now I can get my library card!” So it was a big deal for me.

I love the huge selection, I love that everything is free, and I love when I find a book on my ‘to be read’ list. They even have a summer reading program for adults, but I didn’t have time to sign up for it.
I guess I may be kind of a nerd, but I love reading. I’m glad my husband loves it too. We can go in to any bookstore and stay for hours, just browsing. We even have reading lamps on either side of our bed. Does that make us old? I hope not. I like to think it makes us smart. J

I’m grateful to my mom for reading to us all the time as kids and ‘making’ (even though we wanted to) us sign up for the summer reading program. And I’m grateful to my dad for being a bookworm himself. From him I got my love for non-fiction books. He also gave me his old Hemmingway books, which also have a safe place on my ‘keeper’ shelf. I’m grateful to my sister for passing along so many good book recommendations for me throughout the years (she is a bookworm too). She’s the one that handed ‘The Outsiders’ to me many, many years ago and said “you HAVE to read this”. And I’m grateful to my brother for helping me extend our nightly reading time with mom and The Gingerbread Man and the Golden Goose!

I recently passed along my Little House books and Anne of Green Gables books to Little Miss A. I realize that she can’t read yet, but she loves books already. So I hope her desire to read will grow along with her, because I would love for her to become a bookworm like the rest of our family!