It's More Than Understanding Words On A Page

When I was in the third grade the librarian at my school pulled me aside and told me that I was ready for something more challenging.  What this meant was that I was ready for books without pictures on every page, books with chapters, and lots of pages.  I remember feeling so proud and so special.  She showed me the section where I was to check out my first "big" book, and I can remember being so in awe of all the choices.  I finally decided though.  My choice was a book called The Mona Lisa Mystery.  I loved it, and I was hooked!

Reading became my best friend after that, and I read constantly.  I read Nancy Drew and The Hardy Boys.  I read alot of Judy Blume, and I liked them all.  But the first book I ever actually loved was Anne of Green Gables by L. M. Montgomery.  When I say loved it, I mean it.  I loved the book, loved the characters, and loved losing myself in Anne's world.  I cried when I finished it because I knew I would miss Anne.  How relieved I was to discover that there was an entire Anne series.

Lucy Maude Montgomery

It was after reading Anne of Green Gables that I realized reading is more than understanding words on a page.  It can change you, and it has definately changed me.  Reading has been such a force in my life.  I couldn't imagine life without books.  I love them and I own many.  I just like to have them around.  I enjoy and use our local library and I adore amazon.com.  In 2001 I started keeping a list of all the books I read.  I realized that over the years I was forgetting books that I had read.  Aside from my favorites the rest were leaving me.  I felt like I was losing something, so I decided to start this list.  My list now  holds 198 books.  I read everything, but I'm drawn to classics...children's classics and adult classics. 

I'm going to list the first 10 in this post, and post 10 each day after today.

1. Drifters by James A. Michener
2.Omerta by Mario Puzo
3.Seat of the Soul by Gary Zukav
4.The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
5.The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving
6.Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carrol
7.Pudd'nhead Wilson by Mark Twain
8.My Antonia by Willa Cather
9.Sayonara by James A. Michener
10.Report From Paradise by Mark Twain

You will notice that #1 and #9 are both by James A. Michener, one of my favorite authors of all time.  When I was a junior in high school, my US History teacher assigned the book Centennial by James A. Michener.  I fell in love with his writing which is heavy with history.  I've read most of his books over the years and have never been disappointed.

Born: 2/3/1907
Died:  10/16/1997

As I've said many times before in this post, I absolutely love to read.  It is not merely a hobby, but it it's also stress relief.   It helps keep me sane!  Nothing would make me happier than for someone to read my blog and be inspired to read a book or do some research about something that interests them.  Research is a big part of my reading.  As I read a book I get curious about the back story...I'll research the setting, the characters, the author, the history behind the story, the food they ate, the clothes they wore...and that's how I continue to learn.