I am a reader. I have been since I was eight or nine and began reading fairy tales. Then there was Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys. Then I read JRR Tolkien. Over and over. There were other books interspersed with those mainstays, but I remember particularly reading Tolkien all through my life, to present day.
When I was twelve I read my first Phyllis Whitney. Snowfire. It was fairly sophisticated reading for a twelve year old. I then would look on the same round turning book display every Friday when I went grocery shopping with my mother. We went to Pantry Pride, a chain of grocery stores here in the south. One half was the Pantry Pride grocery, and the other half was JM Fields. If you’re over forty you may remember these stores. They were connected on the inside by an opening about twice as wide as a normal hallway. You stepped through from groceries, and found yourself in a sort of old fashioned KMart. In fact the JM Fields part of the store later housed the second KMart to come to our town. However, I digress. Memories. 🙂 There were circular book racks filled with paperbacks, and I would peruse them while my mother bought groceries and finally make my selection of one, and go home to immediately begin reading. I’d finish in a day or so, and then read it again through the week, until the next Friday when I would choose a new book all over again. There was also the public library, school library, and Waldens bookstore, not to mention my older sisters jumble of books to borrow, not all of which were what my twelve yr old self needed! But, I did discover Mary Stewart, the afore mentioned Phyllis Whitney, and some others that I loved when I grew up just as much as when I’d been young.
A few years later I fell in love with Harlequin romances. No, not like you’re thinking. Once again, if you’re over forty, closer to fifty really, you’ll know. I had a favorite Harlequin author who wrote the most fabulous stories. Unrealistic of course but harmless. If I was lucky there would be one or two kisses and some Pride and Prejudice confusion on the girls part, she assuming of course that the hero didn’t care for her, only to find he couldn’t live without her! Hey, don’t knock it, my husband and I still have those mixups :). The settings for the books were always particularly lovely, tropic isles, Spain, Italy, Andalusia, you get the picture. Our heroine would be suitably Jane Eyre-ish , and our hero dark, handsome, and brooding/ suave/ gentlemanly/ rich/ rude, but contrite and whole heartedly in love with her at the end. They were great!
When I was 16 I discovered Agatha Christie. Genius. Enough said.
In my early twenties my older sister (same one as before ) loaned me a Catherine Cookson, and I was up and away into the modern day Hardy. I discovered many more British writers, Du Maurrier, Godden, Pargeter, Goudge, to name a few and favorite. I also read Alistair Maclean, and John D MacDonald, later getting into James Lee Burke and a few others I liked. In my heart though my favorites would always be early twentieth century, to not quite late twentieth century, female British authors. They simply struck a chord in me.
Upon the advent of the home computer I noticed a change in my reading enjoyment and habits. The enjoyment diminished. Habit became less habitual. Always there was something to do on the computer. Something to see. Now with tablets and smartphones it’s even more difficult. So many times I find myself ready to read my book, but hey, I’m just going to check twitter or facebook quickly. An hour later and I’m still checking..and checking. My book lies abandoned in favor of what? Something far less satisfying . Imagined friendships based on comments left on sites…most certainly addictive, this social medium we all surround ourselves with, clickety clack, clickety clack. Yet, here I am.
When I am in a store or library, and I see a book I want, I feel most vividly the anticipatory happiness one feels when they know they have new books to fall into. It is only when I get home, and put away the groceries, and settle the kiddo, feed the troops, finish the many tasks, and turn to my tablet or phone, that I lose the glow of first love and childhood. I can’t blame anyone but myself. All I have to do is put down the device, and pick up my book… and yet, and yet, hey, is that my phone text notification I hear?…
I am a fairly regular consumer of science fiction and fantasy stuff, but I have not spent a lot of time reading within the Steampunk sub-genre. This changed recently when the writer of a gaming blog I follow recommended Chris Wooding’s Retribution Falls. When someone tries to sell me on a book, I have often found myself most easily swayed when the “seller” employs a handy comparison to something I already know. So when this blogger casually compared Retribution Falls to a Steampunk version of Firefly, I immediately opened a new window in the catalog and placed a hold on it! I consider Firefly and the universe Joss Whedon built around it to be some of the best sci-fi I’ve ever encountered.
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