Reading

I love reading.  Some of my earliest memories revolve around reading, and I can almost define each part of my life by what books I was reading.  Mom got my brothers and I started early... she wanted us to know our ABCs before we went to Kindergarten.  The first book I read was... damn I can't remember the name.

I believe it was something like 'Sam I Am', but that's probably just memories of Dr Seuss invading other parts of me.  Anywho, I was 'reading' this series of books while in Kindergarten.  It felt like there was a never ending supply of these book, but was probably more like twelve.

Soon after, I started reading the Curios George series of books.  Those I absolutely adored.  Up to this point, my brothers and I had the same reading experience (obviously at different times as we are all about two years apart in age).  My older brother stopped reading the books after about a year, but I wanted to continue.  My mother kept me supplied with all kinds of children books and I just kept on reading.  When my younger brother got to that same developmental stage, he stopped reading right where my older brother did.
For awhile there I moved my attentions to magazines.  I remember a monthly children science magazine that my mom got me a subscription to, and of course there was always Highlights.  Then came Elementary school.  If I'm remembering it correctly around the fourth grade I started reading 'Little House on the Prarie'.  Yes... the Laura Ingalls Wilder book.  At that very young age I came upon something that holds up to this day;  Books are WAY better than their television or movie versions.  I did watch the television series, but it couldn't hold a candle to reading the book.

Soon thereafter my grandmother gave me a gift of the entire 'Little House' books.  I read every single one and to this day hold up that collection of books as one of my prized possessions.  Now that I think of it, it's one of the first experiences I had of gender bias.  I remember a fifth grade event at school where the kids could dress up as their favorite fictional character.  I wanted to represent what I read so I dressed up as Almanzo Wilder (friend and later husband to Laura).  Everyone just assumed I was dressing up like Huckleberry Finn.  When I told them what I was dressed up as, I was told that those books were for girls.  Mostly that was from other children, but a few teachers shared that sentiment with me as well.

Sometime in while I was in Junior High my brother (who was in High School) started reading a fantasy series called Dragonlance.  This was the time of my life where I worshiped my older brother.  He could do no wrong, and mimicing his actions was always the best course of action.  I listened to the music he listened too, I watched the television shows he watched and I played the games he played.  So naturally I picked up and read Dragonlance too.  It was my first foray into the 'fantasy' genre, and I absolutely devoted these books.

After my brother finished the series, he moved on to other things rather than continue his reading.  To this day I don't know what inspired him to start reading, nor do I know why he didn't continue reading.  But I was now hooked on this genre.  Thankfully my Junior High School had a great and vast library where they not only included books focused on learning, but also a huge fiction section.  One of the librarians suggested that if I enjoyed Dragonlance, that I should read a story called "The Hobbit".

My love of fantasy continued.  I not only read "The Hobbit" but the entire "Lord of the Rings" series of books.  I followed these up with some other fantasy novels, but none of them could hold a candle to either the Lord of the Rings or Dragonlance.  By the time I got into Highschool, I was starting to lose my faith in reading.  I learned that for every 'good' book there were a dozen 'so-so' books and a whole host of 'bad' books.

Danny was the stuff of Nightmares!

Thankfully the Library at the High School was even better than the one at the Junior High School.  A librarian recommended a particular book (I honestly can't remember what), but while searching for it I came across a big old hard cover book.   The cover art caught my eye as it had this incredibly creepy kid on it.  I pulled it down from the shelf and took it up tot he librarian who promptly took it from me and said something along the lines of "That's too adult for you".

How do you inspire a high school student to do something?  Tell him it's too adult.  Thankfully my first experience at this wasn't drugs or alcohol or sex.... it was Stephen King.

Later on when some of the students were working the check out desk I returned to the library and checked out "The Shining".

If I had to actually put my finger on the point of my life where i truly learned to love reading, is was that winter where I scared the shit out of myself most nights reading Stephen King's "The Shining".  Sure, there were scary parts in Tolkien's Lord of the Rings books, and I broke down crying when reading about Flint dying in the Dragonlance books, but no book ever got to my quite so strongly as the story of Danny and his slowly going crazy father.  At times it would frighten me enough so that I couldn't go to sleep.  Other times it inspired nightmares, and I'd more often than not wake up in a cold sweat.

AND I LOVED IT!!!

I did pepper in a few other books in High School, but for the most part those three years were spent with Mr King.  The Shining, Cujo, Christine, 'Salems Lot, The Stand, Pet Cemetery, The Bachman books, The Eyes of the Dragon, The Talisman, Misery, and of course It, were all books that I devoured in those years.  Sometime in those years I stopped borrowing the books from the Library and started buying them for myself.  Many were paperback re-issues, but I also bought the newly released hard covers of Four Past Midnight, Needful Things, and Gerald's Game.

I didn't know it then, but I had started up a collection that I work at through today... collecting first edition Stephen King novels.  I've purchased and of course read each and every Stephen King book that's been released since 1990.   I've even gone back and found first editions of most of his earlier work.  There are about 5 books from his early career that I either can't find or can't afford.  A first edition 'Carrie' can go as high as several thousand dollars.

The problem came about when I caught up on all the old Stephen King novels.  I floundered around for awhile searching for something new to read and fell upon Anne Rice.  The Vampire Chronicles (through The Vampire Armand), and The Lives of the Mayfair Witches were all read as well as some of her solo books.  But where I felt that SK pulled me into a story and never let me know where it was going to take me, I grew tired of AR's ability to describe something for pages and pages and not progress the story at all.  So there are plenty of her books left unread.

There were other books that I tried to get into including the Necroscope series of books by Brian Lumly, Clive Barker's books, Dean R Koontz, Michael Crichton, The Forgotten Realms, other Drangonlance books, Isaac Asmiov's Robot books.... but none held me as much as Stephen King.

This kind of brings me up to the present.  I am still searching for 'other' books to read.  I recently read the '50 Shades of Grey' books upon the suggestion of a friend.... and oh God are those awful.  I read the first book of 'Game of Thrones', but halfway through I also watched the first season of the show... I think this is the one exception to the 'books > movies/television' rule as I really enjoy the HBO series but really don't enjoy reading the books.

One day a couple years ago I went to the local bookstore (when my town actually had a bookstore... they've all closed since then), found a clerk and asked him to help me find three books.  I wanted to 'classics' and one that was going to be a 'fun' read.  The classics I picked up were Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises, and William Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury.  The 'fun' book I picked up was Jim Butcher's Storm Front.

I actually had trouble reading The Sun Also Rises.  Hemingway's way of writing is so forign as he doesn't seem to ever express how someone feels.  He just lays out what's happening and lets you, the reader, figure out what emotions are causing these actions.   Halfway through reading Storm Front I got a Christmas gift that forever changed reading for me;  an Amazon Kindle.

Once I started reading books on this little device, I never again wanted to read a paperback book.  I still enjoy reading a hard cover book, but paperbacks were also the 'disposable' books in my collection.  After reading any paperback once or twice it would be ruined.  Now I could keep them as they are digital.  Plus I can read them on the computer and nowadays even on my phone.

Sadly.... I never got to The Sound and the Fury.  The reason was Storm Front.  The Dresden Files.  I swear, this is the best combination of fantasy and modern mystery that I can imagine.  If you've never heard of it, The Dresden Files follows the wizard Harry Dresden as he works as a private investigator in Chicago.  Yes... Chicago.  Butcher brings all your favorite fantasy things into the modern day world.  Vampires, Ogres, Faries, Santa Claus, Demons, Angels, Knights, Ghosts, and of course Magic.

As I write this, Butcher just released his 16th Dresden Files books titled 'Skin Game'.  Sadly I quickly read through all of the books in the series and have now included Butcher right along with King as I await every new release.

And for the first time in a LONG time the heavens have opened up and given me TWO new books to read.  I am about halfway through Skin Game and five days ago Stephen King's Mr Mercedes was released.

YAY!

It now takes me about a month to read a book.  In years past I would have a book wherever I went.  School, work, driving, hanging out with friends, my nightstand.  If I could get in a few minutes of reading, I would.  I'd often read myself to sleep and I'd always read in between classes (high school and every version of college I've been through).  But outside of my recent college experience, I now only read on the shitter.  Yes... my kindle sits on a shelf above the toilet.

The main problem is the books I'm reading.  I just finished reading Ender's Game a few weeks ago and while I enjoyed it I didn't really care about it.  I had no great 'need' to find out how it finished.  I can't take a book to work and even if I could it's not as though I have a job that leaves me a lot of time.  I have gotten myself into a good habit of going to sleep only when I'm tired and therefore don't want a book to keep me awake any longer.  It would be different if I cared deeply about a book... I'd find the time to read.  Just sit back in a chair propping my feet up with some classical music quietly playing in the background while I just dive in and experience a story.

At least for a while, that changes.  I am currently on me weekend off.  I could play on the computer, watch movies, hang out with my brother, fix my alarm clock, or even help my brother clean off the roof of the patio... but no I spent several hours curled up on the couch reading about Harry Dresden fighting off a Demon Knight.  The fact that I have a Stephen King book waiting to be read adds only more impetus to read through my current book.

I'm not sure I can ever really qualify what I enjoy in books.  I know that Stephen King and Jim Butcher hit it rather consistently, but they don't write in similar styles.  Jim Butcher writs in a snarky method full of quips and humor while Stephen King comparatively just plods along.   Neither are overly descriptive, but they do paint a good picture.

All I know is that reading even a badly written book is better than reading no book at all.  All I can hope for is to stumble upon some other prolific artist that catches my attention and holds on with both hands... and that's written twenty or so novels.