"Some say life's the thing, I prefer reading" -

"Some say life's the thing, I prefer reading"

- Logan Pearsall Smith (1865-1946)

Discuss:

I am fond of reading, have been since the summer of 1974, when I finally became a smooth reader, enjoying "chapter" books. The two books that made the largest impression on me were The Exciting Family / by Mary Dorothea Maitland Hillyard (1927) and Ben and me : an astonishing life of Benjamin Franklin by his good mouse Amos/ by Robert Lawson (1939).

The first was set in an imaginary town where everything was gray and dreary by law and habit, until a an unusual family comes to town and changes everything, using magic. It had beautiful color illustrations by children as well. The book belonged to my step-father's family and was on the shelves of The Old Family Place in Barre, Massachusetts.

The second was historical fiction of a type I still enjoy - an imaginary (or several) imaginary characters meet and talk and live with historical characters. This came from the shelves of the Public Library there, which was the first of the important libraries in my life. Today, while composing this entry, I have found out its name: The Woods Memorial Library.

Since then, it's been at least 2 or 3 books a week. I still love fantasy, science fiction, and historical fiction. I have branched out also into history and sociology and anthropology. Poetry, less.

For the past 36 years, reading has been my solace and joy. Do I truly prefer it to "life"? No, but my life is so bound up with reading, that it is hard to separate them. But, if I had grown up without books, then I think I would still have been enamored of stories. I would have likely been the child who always ran off to hear a story teller and always begged granny or grandpa for another story; and grown up to be the old lady, sitting by the fire, keeping and telling stories.