#1 My Life as a Reader

Already I am late in posting.....but this is in response to Melanie Holtsman's fall blog challenge.

Reading is one of my favorite pastimes and I am never without a book. For as long as I can remember (and it seems that my memory starts in about third grade with chapter books), I have been a lover of books and a lover of libraries. In elementary school I liked nothing better than going to the library to pick out my next book. I read every biography at my school and I can still remember how all of the covers were just alike. From Amelia Earhart to Babe Ruth, people and their lives just fascinated me. Today however, I do not read very many biographies.

The library at summer camp had creaky old rocking chairs that were a wonderful place to sit and read. Here I devoured all of the Nancy Drew books. Then it was on to the Hardy Boys and Bobbsey Twin mystery books. Today my favorite genre is still the mystery whodunits, but I like to shake it up every once in awhile with a little romance, vampire thriller, or science fiction thrown in. Some authors I have been reading lately are Janet Evanovich, James Lee Burke, James W. Hall, John Twelve Hawkes, Carol O'Connell and Dana Stabenow.

My neighborhood library as a child was the Willowbranch library. Isn't the name just wonderful? And the best part was that the children's section was located downstairs. I can remember eagerly holding my mom's hand as we walked down in joyful anticipation of the sights and smells of all the books awaiting me. I still visit there today and check out such wonderful books as A Nest for Celeste by Henry Cole.

My summer vacation consisted of leaving Jacksonville, packing up the car, picking up my grandmother and driving 30 minutes to her beach house at Atlantic Beach. After a morning of frolicking on the beach and eating lunch, my parents insisted we take a nap. We had to get in our beds, but we were allowed to read if we did not want to sleep. I would bring piles of books from the Willowbranch Library and read such classics as Treasure Island, Old Yeller and Black Beauty. This started my love of reading in bed. A good day is one where I can spend all day in my pajamas reading a book. And likewise my second favorite place to read is on the beach. I love the sun in my face, the sound of the surf in my ears, and the challenge of keeping the book dry as I swim periodically to cool off. I also like to read as I travel and I still devour books on my summer vacations. This year I spent a month on the road and made it all the way to Maine. I finished all 3 of the Stieg Larsson Girl With the Dragon Tattoo books and The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova.

I am such a voracious reader that I never buy a book. I still make use of the public library and my favorite one is our new downtown branch. I swing by there every time I leave the beach to go to Hairpeace, my favorite hair salon. I've started reserving books online and it is exciting to get an email letting me know that my request is ready. But this is as much as I involve technology in my reading. I am old school and not yet ready for books on IPads or Kindles or whatever those devices are called. I still like to feel the novels in my hand and and to experience each turn of the page. I was slow to get a cell phone, so maybe this will change as well.

Put a book in my hands, give me a few hours, this is my idea of paradise.