C.S. Lewis: The Start

I've been reading avidly since I started school. I don't remember whether I read early or not or whether I was a glutton when it came to owning books at that time, but I do remember that once I started reading, I quickly progressed and that the school library was my favorite place to be. 

But owning books? I know exactly when that began, how important it became to me, and what that first book was that soon had me splitting my allowance between stamps and books: The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe. I got it separately, not as part of the boxed set that is in the picture. Once I finished reading it, though, I hungered for the set. I desperately wanted those books, and while I don't quite remember how I managed to finagle my way to it, I do recall that it didn't take too long before they were mine. 

Other collections soon followed. I needed all of the Trixie Belden books and within a couple years had gotten the 34 that were available. They remain some of my favorite books of all time. The Black Stallion series was a must, as where the set of books about Irish setters, Big Red, and the like. I can close my eyes and be ten, eleven, twelve again, devouring those books. Oh, I remember bawling over Where The Red Fern Grows and Old Yeller! 

I was lucky enough to go with my father when he taught history courses for the college; I'd sit and read Heidi and Swiss Family Robinson while he taught. All these books still grace my shelves; I've held onto these despite eight moves over the first fourteen years of marriage, although other books I was forced to part ways with.

Once upon a time, I raced my grandma to read books by Phyllis Wheatley, Victoria Holt, Mary Stewart and similar writers. We had a blast. Mom read along, too, and by the time I was ten I was reading behind my parents, picking up whatever they'd finished reading. From Mom's reading choices, I was introduced to Danielle Steel, Rosemary Rogers, Kathleen Woodiwiss, Erich Segal, and Colleen McCullough. Imagine reading Thorn Birds as an eleven year old! I wondered on french letters for years and years. From Dad, I got to read science fiction masters like Asimov, Heinlein, and Clarke, and the long, sweeping novels of Mitchener. 

As I grew up, I found my own particular interests to read, slipped headlong into fantasy and Stephen Donaldson, Gene Wolfe, and David Eddings. I learned as a teenager that I loved nonfiction as well and read Darwin's The Origin of Species and the incredibly thick The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. It got to where a good deal of my time at school was spent reading books I brought along from home or scoured the library for. 

Books have remained an all-consuming passion for me and there are very few books I wouldn't want to have, even if over time, my particular areas of interest have shifted. And I still read behind both my mom and dad; their interests have widened some over the intervening decades and there are the occasional authors that all three of us read, and even occasionally, that my son and my youngest brother do, as well.

I've passed this love of reading and the love of acquiring books to all three of my children, and it's an absolute joy to share worlds with them. I have, however, made sure to keep the books like Thorn Birds well out of my kids' reach.