A recent visit to the Weirdwriter blog alerted me to the existence of something that’s been going around the Internet. Not a virus, but a “meme” in which you are supposed to list 15 things about you and books. I don’t fill memes out, but given the subject matter, I couldn’t ignore this one. Feel free to post or link to your own via the comments section.
1. I began reading at the age of 3. At least that’s what my parents proudly tell me (first word read: “Exxon”). But I do remember reading a lot growing up, mostly superhero comic books and Encyclopedia Brown mysteries, with the occasional Judy Blume.
2. The first author I went nuts for was – as with many – Stephen King. Thanks to repeated video rentals of George Romero’s CREEPSHOW, I read King’s comic-book adaptation and promptly graduated to his novels. I started with THE SHINING. It was so good I stayed up all night reading it, despite it also freaking me out. From there, I read CARRIE, ‘SALEM’S LOT and all that followed THE SHINING –mostly through paperbacks purchased at Safeway grocery stores – up through my favorite, PET SEMATARY. I also bought IT and MISERY, but never read them. Shortly thereafter, I sold all of them at a family garage sale. (I wish I hadn’t; though I’ve recently replaced most of them with new hardbacks, I can’t for the life of me find a decent copy of THE BACHMAN BOOKS.) One thing has changed: I no longer have the desire to read every book he writes.
3. Sometime in high school, I stopped reading books and switched mostly to magazines. This was not a conscious decision, but a by-product of being assigned books I had no interest in reading (thank God for Cliff’s Notes) coupled with less free time as I dove into the world of after-school and weekend jobs.
4. This continued through college, where I think I read maybe three novels during those four years, all of them by John Irving. It started with A PRAYER FOR OWEN MEANY. I happened upon it in paperback and thought the jacket copy made it sound so cool: “He believes he is God’s instrument. He is.” (Incidentally, I remember thinking the book brought me far closer to God than any church service ever had.) If you were to ask me what my all-time favorite book was – go ahead, I’ll wait – I’d likely say OWEN MEANY. It’s downright weird how many people I’ve met who say the same thing. For a while, I had toyed with rereading it, but now I’m afraid doing so might taint my memory of it. My wife and I named our new son Owen, partly after this book. He is not God’s instrument.
5. I don’t reread many books, but that doesn’t mean I get rid of them when I’m finished. No, sir, if I love or merely like a book, it goes up on the shelf, where it sits like a trophy, an accomplishment. It doesn’t matter if I may never read it in full again; I just like the way it looks.
6. On average, I read two to three books in full a week, mostly fiction. Yes, I read fast, at about two pages a minute, and yes, I do absorb it (unless there’s other noise in the room). During a lunch hour, if there are no interruptions from the phone, my kids or my small bladder, it is not unusual for me to knock out more than 100 pages.
7. When I’m done with a book, you can’t tell it’s been read. The spine is uncracked; the entire thing remains in mint condition, even mass-market paperbacks. (I suppose I could take them back to the bookstore for a refund if I wanted, but I don’t.) This is also why I don’t like to loan out books, because they never come back in the same condition.
8. That’s also why, in general, I don’t like used books or library books. Books that are sticky, greasy or dusty hold zero appeal to me, even if they are “just” a dime or even free. You shouldn’t have to wash your hands every time you turn a page.
9. I love bookstores. I could spend hours in them just looking around, but usually don’t because of other time constraints or impatient children with me. However, I cannot stand it when other customers treat it like their home, sitting down in aisles reading and drinking coffee. Because they’re always sitting in front of a shelf I’m wanting to look at, and act like they’re so put out to have to move their lazy asses two feet to the right.
10. The book that got me back into hardcore reading: an anthology called INTO THE MUMMY’S TOMB, strange as it may sound. For Christmas 2001, my brother gave me a Barnes & Noble gift certificate that had to be blown. I picked up a couple of UK music magazines and needed something else to deplete the remaining balance. My attention span being what it was at the time, I went over to the anthologies section and happened upon INTO THE MUMMY’S TOMB, edited by John Richard Stephens. Having enjoyed the recent wave of mummy movies at the time, I took a chance. Reading that promptly sent me to read more works by some of its contributors, notably Ray Bradbury, H.P. Lovecraft, Arthur Conan Doyle, Edgar Allan Poe, Agatha Christie and Bram Stoker. They in turn led to other authors. Needless to say, I’ve been addicted all over again ever since.
11. Though I don’t read them as much as I used to, I love anthologies. My reasoning is this: If you buy a new novel that you’re interested in, and several pages in you realize it sucks, you’re out your $20 or whatever you spent. But with an anthology, if you’re interested in it, chances are you’re going to like more stories than you dislike. If you come across something you dislike, you just skip ahead to the next story. That’s a helluva deal. I simply can’t comprehend why anthologies are such poor sellers in the marketplace.
12. I used to see a book through to the bitter end, no matter how bad it was. Then I read an article (I can’t remember where) whose author declared life as far too short to engage in this practice. So I’ve since instituted “the 100-page rule,” which simply states: If I don’t like it by page 100, I quit. Sometimes, even 100 pages is far too generous to devote.
13. My only other book-related regret harkens back to college. In my junior year, I believe, I signed up for an upper-level English literature class called “Mysteries and Case Histories.” The reading list was comprised of Bram Stoker’s DRACULA, Daniel Defoe’s ROBINSON CRUSOE and the ever-famous Sherlock Holmes short story “The Adventure of the Speckled Band,” among a few other titles I can’t remember. Short of time (and no, I wasn’t out partying), I didn’t read any of them, sailing through the class on Cliff’s Notes with a solid B. Today, I wish I had read them then, because I love them now. Had I done so, it probably would be my favorite class.
14. I used to watch a movie every night of the week. Now, it’s down to maybe one. That’s because I’d much rather be reading. Plus, the kind of movies I want to watch often aren’t appropriate with kids running through the house; with a book, I don’t have to worry.
15. I refuse to believe that a book has to be “literary” or “say something important” to have value. After all, isn’t reading supposed to be fun? If whiny childhood memoirs and deadly serious journeys of the soul are your cup of tea, good for you. But I’m always frustated that that’s about the only kind of books the media seems bothered to cover. They thumb their noses at genre fiction – from horror to mystery to sci-fi – as if it were a minority class to be looked down upon. People seem to forget (or never realized) that much of what are considered classics today – from FRANKENSTEIN to HEART OF DARKNESS to Edgar Allan Poe – is genre fiction. Yet if I wanted to find a review or discussion about such-and-such book, I’d always hit a dead end. Out of that frustration grew this site, so I guess I shouldn’t complain.
Related posts:
- BOOKGASM’s Best (and Worst) of 2005
- Happy New Year from BOOKGASM
- 8 Highly Anticipated Books I Couldn’t Afford to Buy in 2005, but Will Discounted in 2006
- Fun with Bookgasm (and King Kong’s breasts)
- 10 Books I Can’t Wait for in 2006
