Reading
Now Playing: Cold (but I'm Still here) Evan's Blue

I have been a reader for as long as I can remember, if it's written I'll be reading it, I know the names of every street name between here & work & every street name between my old trailer & work & also between the trailer & here. I can't not read most of the time, I have read & know the name of every attraction & resturant between here & Massachusetts. I'm actually considering going there by a different route this summer so I'll have something new to read & look at.
Acording to my mother I taught myself to read, I went to a very loose alternative school the teacher thought my mother was teaching me to read & my mother thought the teacher was teaching me (didn't you just love the 70's?) & no one supposedly actually taught me I just started reading. I remember 1 book they had there. It was full of optical illusions. Like where you look at a grid & if you stare long enough, dots show up in the boxes in the grid.
That was where I learned the life lesson that if the male of the species leaves the seat up & you don't look first you're going to be sorry. I also heard the phrase 'mind your own beeswax' there first. we were all scandalized that Linda had said it too As I remember. The next Free School that I went to I didn't do much but read & play. I read a LOT of books there as they had extensive collections of them & if I wasn't reading I was outside in their extensive fields, woods & water. (about the only thing I learned there was how to make chocolate chip cookies, gingerbread houses & to add long numbers)When my mother took me out of school & taught my brother & I at home little changed for me, I read nearly constantly & if I wasn't reading I was outside a lot of the time (though my mother did at least teach me math & I disected a frog & a worm once!)
At home I had lots of books, my father read Dr seuss & little golden books to me, my grandmother shared her Tasha Tudor collection with me (still many of my favorites) as I got older my father read me the Little House on the Prarie series & then I went on to read on my own, I re-read that series & then took on the Hobbit & the Lord of the Rings trilogy, I started at age 8 & read them cover to cover, over the next 5 or so years I was always reading them, I'd finish The Return of the King & start the Hobbit back over. unlike some people I like to have multiple books going at the same time. I will read something for awhile & then take a break & go on to something else then come back to the first one, I also like to have fiction & non going at the same time. (though my non fiction is usually on the occult or ghosts or divination, I know many people would consider those subjects fiction too!)
My mother despaired of me when I was younger, she felt I was reading beneath my level, because along with Tolkien I was reading Beverly Cleary's Ramona books (There were less back then)Trixie Belden mysteries, Half Magic by Edward Eager, The Witch Family (both of these last I have copies of for my kids) Finnaly (in my mothers opinion at least) I discovered adult books, I read the Thorn Birds at 10 & I remember my Grandmother being horrified that I was reading it because it was 'racy' (the racy parts were my favorites) I really loved Stephen King & I read the Clan of the Cave Bear series & so many other books I can't even begin to list them all. Annother favorite in recent years is Stephen Kings Wife Tabitha King, Pearl, One on One & Survivor rank as some of my favorite books. Last week I finished a series of 6 books, the Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon & it was almost like ending a love affair - there is supposed to be at least 1 more, maybe 2 more in the series but I think -from reading the website- that I'll have to wait for her to WRITE them!! In order to get the last book cheap I joined a book club & so got to pick a few other books, I got a few nonfiction & a cookbook but I also picked up Stephen King's newest book Cell & I've already finished it. It was small by King's standards & was very intense & had a typical King ending in which you don't really know how it ends. Left me wanting more shall we say. I loaned it to a co-worker immediately after finishing it & now am on the prowl for more books, I find it hard to read certain books after other books, after Outlander I wanted anything but historical fiction because nothing else could measure up to what I'd been immersed in for almost 6 months. After a Stephen King everything else I have available & waiting to be read either seems tame (Lee Smith. a very entertaining southern writer who writes about the area I live in most of the time. or Douglas Coupland's new one which I have to be in just the right mood to read. he's tough for me to take unless I'm in the right mood.) Oh well, tommorows a day off from work, maybe I'll find something for $.50 at goodwill! Seriously though I'd love some suggestions!