One of my favorite parts of growing up in Montana was driving down the kinds of highways we drove down every day, spotting old, run-down, abandoned houses, and every time asking my mom excitedly, “Can we stop and go in?!”
I always knew the answer was no. She always knew I was going to ask. It was just our thing.
The thing about those old houses wasn’t that they were terribly significant, historically or otherwise. But they sparked my imagination. Someone had lived there. Who? And why had they left? Why hadn’t the house been passed down or sold off?
In my mind, even though I usually knew better, I always kind of hoped that maybe one of them had belonged to Laura Ingalls. We weren’t in Minnesota or Wisconsin, after all, but we were on a prairie.
Little House in the Big Woods was the first book–real, big girl book–I ever read on my own. My mom had started reading it to me, and when I’d finally gotten tired of waiting for her to finish baking the cookies or cleaning the kitchen, which are, for some reason, the only two things I can really recall my mom doing when I was that age (besides going to work and making the copies. That one’s for you, Mom.), I asked her if it was okay if I just tried reading it on my own. She told me yes, and the rest is history.
We all have firsts in our lives, and I’d be lying if I said I remembered most of my own. But I remember my first book.
I catch flack, sometimes, for the kinds of books I prefer. The whole world is in a Twilight craze, and I’d be silly to judge any of you who love the books. I never really gave them a real chance, but even with all the hype, they really don’t appeal to me. The romance novels, trashy, teen-friendly, or otherwise, that are so readily available and easily accessible and let’s face it, widely adored, just don’t do it for me, 9 times out of 10. And there’s something wrong with that, according to more than a few people. I’m conceited and arrogant and my taste in books is too “brainy.” Can’t I just pick up the kinds of books everyone else is reading puhlease?
Hey, I joined the Harry Potter whirlwind phenomenon with the best of ‘em. I’m not immune to what everyone else is reading. I’m not in it to be different. Or to prove a point.
I am in it to be me.
I’ve never been much for history books, or historical fact, for that matter. I’ve been very recently ridiculed because I could more readily name the faces on Mount Richmore than Mount Rushmore. But I love fiction set in different times, and places, within different castes of society. From Little House in the Big Woods to Pride and Prejudice to the book I’m reading now, Native Son. From western American prairies to the proper English countryside to the Chicago ghetto. These are worlds I want to know more about. I want to know how people talked, how they dressed, how they fell in love.
Yeah. I love love stories. But I know how love works now. What was it like on the way out to Montana in the 1800s? That’s what I want to know.
I recently finished reading Water For Elephants, which I’d heard approximately a hundred thirty two good things about, and I was not disappointed in the slightest. It was a lovely story, a love story, an easy read, and it took me to a place that I never even realized existed. The world of grand circus life! Big tops! Trains! Elephants and toothless lions and an entire fleet of beautiful horses. Smelly old men, prostitutes, beautiful women, lost souls. Not only that, but into the life of an old man who had had a full, beautiful life, just searching for one more thing to hold on to.
Two worlds in one book!
I don’t read to be brainy. I do like using my brain now and then, granted. I don’t want something that will bore me, something that won’t make me think one tiny bit. That’s what TV is for. No, I don’t read to look smart. I just read because I like to. And I like the books I like. And the books I like take me somewhere.
…And now I feel like I could have skipped this entire essay and posted the lyrics to the “Reading Rainbow” theme song for you.
Ah well.
So… what do you like to read?
oh reading rainbow. how’s THAT for a long time ago?
i hear you. i DID do the twilight thing and for what they are, they were pretty good. i don’t know if you would like them, but from this description, i’d say probably not. you might, like me, appreciate them for what they are, but at the end of the day, you’re certainly not going to go out and buy them.
i love books. right now, of course, i have to dedicate time to reading TEXTbooks instead of novels, but hopefully this summer, i’ll be able to devour some books being i won’t be working at all. of course, until summer classes kick in, then i have to abandon the novels for textbooks again. but i think that’s ok. because i LOVE to learn. if i could, i would be a perpetual student and i would take every single class there is to take out there. because learning is FASCINATING. i no longer go to school to get good grades. i go to school to learn stuff. lots of stuff. interesting and not. i have found the most REWARDING way to spend $30k. i just wish i’d learned that sooner. at least i’ve found what i love now and i’m taking the classes and getting to LEARN so much. and hey, i even help other people learn too. even if they don’t appreciate it. welcome to the real world, right?
I like to read all different kinds of things. Unlike you, I don’t remember my first book, but it would have easily been one of the Big House books. I loved those as a kid.
Now? I’ll read just about anything I can get my hands on. I took a five year break from pleasure reading in college, and it’s nice to be reading again for fun. I love historical fictions, biographies, love stores, etc. Anything, really. Though I’ve recently decided that I will never read another Nicholas Sparks book again. Period.
Happy Sunday, love!
To me, what matters is not what you read, but that you do it! Shocker, huh? Glad you loved Water for Elephants. I tore into that one.
I love it. I’m like you — I don’t read books to be cool or hip or superior. I read them to enjoy them, to find myself in new places. Most of the time, I pick a book just by checking out the cover, the back and maybe skimming a few pages. I don’t rush toward the Best Sellers! shelves (but I don’t ignore them, either). I just love walking around a bookstore or library and exploring. Sometimes I buy a book that ends up being not quite as great as I had hoped, but I have no regrets.