I cannot remember a time when I wasn’t surrounded by books, fascinated by books, and consumed with a need to read . . . everything.   

On my nightstand - some finished, some not started

When I was young, our local library was a small rural place.  But it had a great selection of children’s books.  I was allowed to check out six at a time and I did so nearly every week.  The ones I still recall vividly are the Indian in the Cupboard and the entire OZ series.  Junior high was A Wrinkle in Time and the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. By high school I had discovered Stephen K*ing.  He is still the only author that has ever made me physically ill (IT) and given me repeated nightmares (Tommyknockers).

Started but not finished, yet.

At some point in my adulthood I asked my mother, a former English teacher, for a list of must read by the time you graduate high school books.  The premise of the request was that works of literature, movies, and even paintings often refer to other works of literature.  Without knowledge of the latter, the first fails to deliver the full intended message.  I felt pretty good that while I had read less than 33% of the books, I could summarize the plot for nearly 85% of them.  The Count of Monte Cristo has become my new favorite classic.  I now know that the Last of the Mohicans has a pivotal character never seen in the movie, Doctor Zhivago is worth every page, and that Voltaire has a wicked sense of humor. 

On a related topic, my mother never kept it a secret from her students that she did not enjoy science fiction or horror stories.  I will never forget the day I came home for a visit during my college days. She insisted that I read a short story that one of her students had written for an assignment that she thought was very well done in spite of it’s gory plot. I, in turn, insisted that she read the first 50 pages of the novel IT even if it wasn’t her genre of choice.  Apparently she failed to tell her students that her daughter didn’t share her dislike of sci-fi and horror.