A History of Reading

(Or the story of Superfudge)

The history of my personal reading habits can be traced back to the Judy Blume classic, “Superfudge”. It is the first novel that I ever read and it was the start of my love affair with books. Actually, to be entirely truthful, it probably started earlier than that. My parents are both enthusiasts of the written word, and they instilled that in me from a very early age. My earliest memories include those of my Mom reading, “The Wizard of Oz” and my Dad reading to me, “Cars and Trucks and Things that Go”. Every day had reading time, and after I while I would “read” books to my parents because I had memorized the words and the page turns.

My parents encouraged me to read, and the first novel that I ever read entirely myself was, “Superfudge” back when I was 7 years old. I can remember being so proud of having read a novel and I probably was one of the first in my class to do so. After whetting my appetite, I read several more Judy Blume books, including, “Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing” and several others. I moved on to many of Beverly Cleary's books, from the Henry Series (they were awesome!) to the Romona series. From there, I read everything that I could put my hands on. From light reads like the Hardy Boys to better material such as, “Island of the Blue Dolphins”. I read dozens and dozens of books, but the one that stands out in sharp relief from all the others was, “A Wrinkle in Time”. That is hands down the best book that I read as a child. I think that I was 10 because I remember reading the sequel on the plane we took back from our Florida family vacation when I was in grade 5. Wrinkle was a book that I would recommend to any advanced reader of that age. It was a book about children, but didn't write condescendingly down towards them. It dealt with heavy topics and was very cleverly written. I re-read the book years later when doing my undergraduate degree, and equally enjoyed it then, and perhaps I'll give it another read soon.

As I got older, I still read some of the young adult books like Gordon Korman's, “Bruno and Boots” series but also included classics like, “The Hobbit”. I can also remember early forays into fantasy like The Magic Kingdom series. I also began to read more sci-fi, especially Asimov (I, Robot, the Robot Detective novels, etc) This continued until I was probably in my mid-teens when the demands of studying began to wear into my reading time. Soon, books took a back seat to other time-sinks of a teenager. Surely, they were never forgotten, but I didn't read as much as I did when I was younger. During my undergraduate degree, I still took the time to read novels. I began to get into the Star Wars books, (If you're at all a Star Wars fan and haven't read the Timothy Zahn novels, shame on you!). I also continued into fantasy reading with many out of the Shanarra series. A few standout novels of that time include, “1984”, “The Positronic Man”, “Catcher in the Rye”. In the last year of that degree I began to read more when I read a whole bunch of Dragonlance books (guilty pleasure, don't judge!) as well as the first four Harry Potter books. The next true flood in reading came a bit later, just after I graduated from my Computer Science Degree. Most of my friends had moved away and I found myself with a lot of time on my hands, so I turned back to reading. In six months I probably read 20 or 30 books, most notably the Belgaried, The Melorian, and a huge swath of Star Wars books. I also began reading more biographies, which was a genre I hadn't touched before. Perhaps the most fun of these was, “I am Spock” by Leonard Nimoy. He is a very funny man and I would highly recommend that book. Another fantastic book I read about that time was, “Universe on a T-Shirt”. Physics was always my favorite science, and this does a great job at explaining the theories that govern our universe at a understandable level.

After about six months of reading at that pace, I found myself much busier and unfortunately reading again took a back seat to other demands in my life. Oh sure, I would go through spurts where I read a few books here and there, but it was never the same as that 6-month period after my undergrad. After a couple of years in IT, I left the industry and went back to school to study to be a pharmacist and whatever free time I had was now most definitely gone. In those 5 years of studying for that degree, I may have read 4 or 5 novels. I simply just didn't have the time, and after pouring through the books studying, I just didn't have it in me to read anything else.

This brings us to the present day. I've been out as a practicing pharmacist for a little more than a year, and back in May I purchased my Kobo eReader. If you read my posts from that time, I wanted the Kobo to be a catalyst for re-igniting my love (and habit) of reading. I have to say that it has been mostly successful. I simply don't think I'll ever have the time like I used to, especially now with a busier career and being a husband and homeowner. My priorities have changed and I can't stay up half the night reading any more. That being said, in the four months I've had my Kobo, I've read six novels, and while that doesn't sound like a lot, that's pretty much the same output that I had during my entire pharmacy degree compressed into 4 months. Reading is now something that I turn to when looking for something to do. I reach for my Kobo just as often as I reach from my PSP or PS3 controller. That is why I think the Kobo has helped me to return to reading.