Friday, September 3, 2010

What have you read this summer?


A favorite question this time of year is—what book are you taking to the beach with you? When I was a kid it wasn’t a question of book, it was a question of books. I couldn’t get enough reading in during the summer months. There was a library branch only six blocks from our house and I would walk there at least once a week to pick out books.

Neighbors as lending libraries

Half way down the block from our house lived a retired schoolteacher and her widowed sister who had worked as a telephone operator with my grandmother. Their names were Grace and Bell. Grace was the retired schoolteacher. I always thought there was a bit of irony in the fact the Bell had worked for Bell Telephone as an operator. I digress. During the summer, when my friends were either gone on vacation or otherwise occupied, I’d stop in for a visit at Grace and Bell’s. Grace had a collection of children’s books for the neighborhood children to enjoy. I’ll never forget when a copy of Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory appeared on her bookshelf. I immediately wanted to read it. There was one catch to reading one of the Grace’s books, you had to read it out loud to her and Bell. This was never a chore for me, these two women where my adopted grandmothers and I loved them. So sitting and reading a chapter each time I visited, which was usually rewarded with a dish of ice cream, was a double joy for me—reading and spending time with these two smart and endearing women.

While I was in elementary school my favorite authors were E.B. White, Beverly Cleary, P. L. Travers and Carolyn Keene (Nancy Drew Mysteries), to name but a few. Oh and I have to mention the Pippi Longstocking books by Astrid Lindgren. I wanted to be Pippi and live in her incredible house.

When I moved from elementary to junior high and high school my taste in books shifted a little, although I was still reading E.B. White (The Once and Future King—absolutely love this book. It lead to my writing my English essay on King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table) and another neighbor’s house became my favorite lending library. My life-long BFF, Debbie, and her family lived two doors down from mine. Her mother, Peggy, was another incredibly intelligent and important woman in my life. She was a second mother to me. When she died of cancer in 1987 it was the closest I’d come, at that point, to feeling like I’d lost a parent. Peggy LOVED to read and she read everything. Harlequin romances were her guilty pleasure—she had boxes of them. She also loved Leon Uris, she raved about what an important book Exodus was. I don’t believe there wasn’t a book genre or author she hesitated to take on. But romances where her first love and beyond the Harlequin books, she adored Mary Stewart, Phyllis Whitney and Victoria Holt. And so those three authors became my favorites and I would wait for each new book to be published, knowing that Peggy would buy it and once she was finished with it, I would be given the book to read.

Parental influence

My dad was also a big influence on my reading choices. Both of my parents were avid readers, my mom loved Stewart, Holt and Whitney and we shared books all the time. But it was my dad who got me reading Arthur Conan Doyle. One year for Christmas my mom suggested my brother and I buy my dad a compilation of Sherlock Holmes stories for my dad. We bought him this thick tome that contained all of the complete Sherlock Holmes novels and short stories. My dad loved it. He loved to re-read his favorites and would write on inside front cover of the book the dates he had read it. The volume of Sherlock Holmes stories had a long list of dates. It was such a beloved book that over time the binding began to crumble.

Favorite high school teacher

During high school I had the joy of enrolling in my first literature class taught by Miss Carlson. I can’t recall her first name now, but I adored this woman. She had what I thought had to be the best job in the world. She got paid to read books and then to teach about them. She introduced me to Poe, Dickens and Bradbury—now how’s that for a diverse lot? I couldn’t get enough of these authors. To this day Bradbury will force me to think like no other author. And the chills I got from Poe, especially when Miss Carlson played a recording of Vincent Price reading The Cask of Amontillado, were thrilling beyond words.

As you can see, reading has been a life-long love affair for me. The romance genre has become my favorite, but I also love mysteries, literary fiction and even some sci-fi and fantasy. It is my love of reading that has lead to my dream of being an author. I’ve always had stories rattling around in my head. I’d hear a news story and I would soon have made up a whole mystery around what could have possibly happened. Or I’d see someone in an airport or shopping mall and something in their behavior would soon me making some intriguing story about them. I always thought everyone made up stories like that. But talking to my sister one day I discovered that wasn’t the case. She didn’t think like that. I also learned that most writers are constantly writing in their heads, thinking up story lines and asking themselves “What if?” I’ve been doing this all my life and so now I not only enjoy reading, I enjoy writing too.

So, what have I been reading this summer? Linda Howard, Sherry Thomas and a recent discovery and now a favorite romance author, Georgette Heyer. She wrote Regency romances and began her writing career in 1921. She also wrote mysteries, but I haven’t read any of those, yet. If you haven’t read any Heyer you must, especially if you love Jane Austen. Two Heyer favorites are Bath Tangle and the Reluctant Widow—very fun romps.

And this leads me back to my original question—what have you read this summer?

mc

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