In Recognition of Summer Reading

A favorite book from my personal archive; A lifelong reader on books

There are so many books that have meant so many things in my life. As I prepared my thoughts for this month’s post, it became clear I could not choose one or even a handful.

Then I looked deeper into my life as a reader and writer. I thought about all the characters, places, and stories, the reasons I was attracted to a novel or nonfiction work. I thought about all the writers whose work has moved and continues to move me personally and creatively.

And finally, I thought of a passage in a text from my recent studies on library history about how the library has been used oppressively. I was reminded of the American writer Richard Wright’s autobiography, Black Boy, and the impact it had on me in high school both in learning about racism and privilege, and hearing the thoughts of another writer about the reading life. My recent reconnection to this writer brought a quote from my first reading that resonates even more deeply today:

“Reading was like a drug, a dope. The novels created moods in which I lived for days.”

— Richard Wright, Black Boy

It’s with that expression of the deep, personal connection novels can offer that I chose All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr, published in 2014 by Scribner.

This World War II novel tells the story of two young characters, Parisian Marie-Laure and German-born Werner, whose separate paths eventually intersect briefly during this terrible time. There are memorable supporting characters and storylines, along with interesting historical details. (If you watched the Netflix series, the story is significantly condensed and out of order as compared to the book, though beautifully done.) My uncles and dad fought in World War II and my pop in World War I, so this section of history has always been of great interest.

This novel sat on my shelf like many books purchased during my years teaching high school. It called to me more often than most, until I finally read it last summer. The caliber of storytelling and writing was incredible, the characters accessible and memorable. Of course, right? it’s a Pulitzer Prize winner.

But this was the kind of experience Wright describes as going beyond critical recognition and into that special mood and place. A few pages in I knew a choice was imminent: either allow myself to binge-read for days or choose to savor and absorb by reading slowly over a few months. The latter choice is why this book opened me again during a difficult time in my life. As I’m working now to explain all the things this book means to me, it’s difficult, not so unlike the experience of B.J., a lifelong reader, whose interview comes next. So, instead of prattling on, I’ll share the most resonant line from this novel:

“All your life you wait, and then it comes, and are you ready?”

I’ll leave you to discover which character’s life this is tied to and why, but for me it was personal. It was another sign to continue waking up. To continue opening to all I have still to accomplish, and especially to allow vulnerability to lead those choices. That line and a series of other signs from many places outside reading are how I landed here. And they’re why I keep coming back each month, why I continue to add more fears to the list of what I am doing and will do in order not to let any more of this precious life move forward without my full, messy, and joyful participation.

Perspective: Authentic Life

Reading is a sacred act for many people, especially on this platform. It is personal, fulfilling, and meaningful each time we sit with a text that allows us entry into the world of a story through our imagination. To engage in reading, both for pleasure and for accessing knowledge, is to invest time and energy into yourself and your life.

This month, I visited with a lifelong reader, retired educator, and lover of stories. Here is our conversation. Please note, the interviewee chose not to participate in a photo for privacy reasons.

TPA: What got you started as a reader? Do you remember the first book that stayed with you and why?

B.J.: I don’t know what got me started as a reader. I can remember after I learned how to read all I wanted to do was read. I always, always read. If I ran out of books, my mother had bought the encyclopedia junior and regular encyclopedias. I can remember reading the encyclopedias because I had run out of books to read. I just had to read, constantly, so I don’t remember learning to read, just always reading. In my mind, I’ve always been a reader.

The first book I remember, I must have been in elementary school, is Slan by A.E. Van Vogt. It’s a science fiction book. It’s the only book I have clear remembrance of and in fact, about 10 years ago I was thinking about that book. I looked for it and found a paperback copy that I bought. It just stayed with me, just a very impressionable part of my reading experience. I can remember it’s about a youngster, hiding for his life, and he’s an alien. He’s the main character and I evidently really associated with and rooted for this character.

TPA: What has sustained your reading life?

B.J.: I just always read. I have always preferred reading to watching television. People talk about watching shows like Yellowstone, but I can’t watch Yellowstone because I’m reading a book. The television is background noise and I’m reading a book. I might tune into something, but I’m reading a book. My children knew when they were growing up I would have a book in my lap while driving the car. When we got to a red light, I would look down and read. They knew when the light turned green it was their job to tell me the light had turned so I could stop reading and continue driving the car. I no longer do that, but I did when my children were young.

TPA: Do you prefer print, digital, or both? Why?

B.J.: Up until the pandemic, I had always preferred print. I liked holding a book in my hands. I liked, I guess, the feel of the book in my hands. I also liked the ease of flipping back and finding things. To me, that’s easier in a print book than a digital book. But during the pandemic, with things closed down, I stopped going to the library. We have to stop here and go back.

I stopped buying books because in my last move, I downsized so much, I had to give away most of my books and have no room to store books. So, I started using the public library. Now, for the past 20 years, I have used the public library, so I’ve learned how to reserve books on hold, doing all those kinds of things. Until the pandemic, I was great with doing all those things with physical books.

During the pandemic I started easing into e-books. Low and behold, you can download e-books and they become immediately available. That was gratifying. Now, I’m so used to reading e-books, I might even prefer them. I can hold this one item in my hand, as opposed to a heavier book, in my hand. At this point in my life, I don’t know which I would prefer, but I have become extremely comfortable with e-books.

TPA: Do have a favorite genre or character?

B.J.: I like mysteries, I like mysteries and thrillers. I’ve got a couple of characters I go back and forth with, one is an Equalizer character named Orphan X. One summer I found Orphan X and I got really dialed into that kind of thriller. That led me to read a couple other books in the vein of Orphan X, but he’s really my guy. I just like him as a character. This is, I guess, what dials me in to particular authors. I like their characters. I have to like the characters you are presenting to me and I like Orphan X. He was a trained assassin, but he left the program and he operates as a savior, really. In other words, he’s the man from nowhere. If you have a problem you cannot solve, you call him, and he tries to solve it. It’s usually by getting rid of a lot of people. These people are in helpless, hopeless situations that they can no longer handle and he comes in and saves the day for them. He’s this person who lives by himself, is extremely OCD, and in the first book he meets a couple neighbors in the elevator. He comes in, is kind of bloody, and the little boy notices that his pants are wet. Well, his pants are we with blood. Anyway, he really forms and attraction for the little boy’s mother, who’s a widow. Of course, it can’t go anywhere because he has this dangerous lifestyle, she’s an attorney raising a young son, so that can go nowhere. This kind of tension adds to the intrigue of the book and in later books, he kind of adopts a teenager who’s a washout of this program he’s also been through. People are after her and tried to kill her, he saves her life, and they become co-dependent. I’ve just dialed into Orphan X. I’m an Orphan X fanatic.

The other person, a prolific writer, who most people probably read as Nora Roberts, but I read her other pen name, J.D. Robb. Those are the In Death series about a New York police woman named Eve Dallas and how she solves all of her cases, about her billionaire husband, who’s supposed to be handsome and rich. It’s about them, their friends. Eve is a curmudgeon, who in her grumpy way, attracts all these friends. Every now and then, they do friend kind of things, and so on.

I’m into these kinds of books and will follow the characters book, by book, by book. I get very upset when the author is kind of slow in writing the next book because I read so much. I read constantly, so I’m always running out of books.

B.J., a lifelong reader, retired educator, and tap enthusiast, is a Floridian in her 80s.

Works Referenced

Library: An Unquiet History by Matthew Battles, 2015 reissue, W.W. Norton & Company Inc., pp. 180-184.

Black Boy, A Record of Childhood and Youth by Richard Wright, 1945, Harper & Brothers.