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One of the things I like most about being a writer is meeting readers. I love getting reader mail.
Now, of course I love hearing about what they thought about my books! Receiving a note always makes my day.
But almost just as much, I love connecting with people who read as much as I do. A lot of my friends aren’t readers. It takes them a month to read a book, and they seem to look at it as a chore.
But when someone writes to tell me she read a book in a day, I get it. See, I do the same thing!
I read a lot. A whole lot.
I always have. Both my parents always had books next to them. My older brother and sister read a lot, too.
Like the lady who wrote me today, I read all the Nancy Drew books. I loved Agatha Christie, too-especially Hercule Poirot. Going to the library was one of my favorite activities as a child.
Now, going to the bookstore with my seventeen year-old daughter is one of my favorite things to do.
When Lesley and I go to our neighborhood Barnes & Noble, we have a whole routine. First thing we do is get vanilla lattes. Both are grande size. Mine is with skim milk, Lesley’s is with whole milk and whipped cream. (oh, to be on swim team!)
Then, we dart off through the store on our own.
I head to the Inspirational section, then to mysteries, and then to the romances. I love books with happy endings and stories where everyone lives happily ever after. Lesley goes between the teen books and the fiction and literature section. She’s just as likely to pick up a vampire book as she is A Tale of Two Cities. Or the latest ‘Oprah’ pick-or a new biography.
By the time we meet up again, our lattes are long gone and our arms are full of books.
And then, of course, it’s my job to pay for them. Books are my weakness, and Lesley knows that while I might complain about a pair of jeans or a designer t-shirt costing too much, I never complain about buying books.
“What am I going to do when I go to college, Mom?” she asked me the other day. “I’m never going to afford to buy all these books. You know I’m going to get sick of going to the library.”
Because I know how much I’m going to miss her, I tell her the only thing I can. “You’re just going to have to ask me to visit you,” I say. “I’ll visit you and we’ll go to the bookstore anytime you want.”
Has everyone else been a life-long reader? Did you grow up going to the library, too? Anyone else read Nancy Drew or Hercule Poirot? Or, what sparked your interest in reading?
Shelley
8 Comments
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Tamara McDonald 
Angela 
Janella 
Hi Shelley
I have always loved to read. My parents started reading to me when I was a toddler. Of course I don’t remember this story but I was told that they had read my very first books to me so many times that I had them memorized so well that I could recite them word for word and even knew when to turn the pages. One day one of the neighbors was was watching me and said “she isn’t really reading, is she?”
I used to go to the library a lot, but rarely go any more since I like to keep the books I read and the library frowns on that.
I have no idea how many books I have but there are boxes and boxes full. I go to WalMart, flea markets, yard sales, etc. I buy more than I have time to read so someday when I retire I will have enough to last me a lifetime.
I also buy a lot of magazines. I like Reminisce, Looking Back, Country and Country Woman, and all the magazines about geneology.
I like the statement that Katherine Heigle’s character made in the movie “Love Comes Softly” that in a book you can go anywhere you want to go and be anything you want to be.
Although I don’t cook very much I also collect cookbooks and recipes.
I could probably start my own library if I wanted to. One of my goals is to someday get all of my books organized into some kind of system so that I know what I actually have.
Jeanette