Book History

I ordered some Penzey spices this morning and talked to a lovely gal in Wisconsin. She said  my order would be here by the end of the week. I told her she might want to send that box by boat!

Yes, it's raining—again. So this morning I was thinking about my book life and how it developed.

My first readings were two children’s magazines that I got in the mail even before I could read. I loved my Humpty Dumpty and Jack and Jill. Mother read them to me and helped me learn mazes and matching before I got old enough to read the stories to myself. It was during this time period that I read a lot of comic books. Mother let me pick one at a time at the drug store where I agonized over choices between Superman and Batman. In the beginning she would sit down and read them to me.

Then when I was in grade school our coffee table in the living room always hosted the True Story, LOOK and LIFE. Mother discouraged me from reading True Story and when I became a skilled reader, she put those in her bedroom. But the pictorial essay magazines were ours to read or cut up or take to school.

Then I got old enough for a library card! In the beginning Mother took me and we carried home stacks of books. I gradually moved up to riding my bike, and I moved chapter books, horse stories, fiction about nurses finding romance, and eventually made it to the classic shelf where I tackled Around the World in 80 Days, Last of the Mohicans, War and Peace and the like. I missed a lot with my young mind but pushed through those books as best I could.

Then came Shakespeare in high school with the drama every junior reads, Romeo and Juliet. I loved it. “Romeo, Romeo, where forth are thou?” I went on to read Shakespeare histories and comedies in college. While I always appreciated his work, it was never easy reading for me. I had to read it aloud (which are the way plays are written—meant to be heard) to get my small amount of understanding. I remember people living next to my apartment asked me what I did every night as they could hear just enough of the lines through the wall to think I was slightly weird. Once they knew I was an English major, they understand and then knew for sure I was weird!

Over the weekend I finished Dragging Wyatt Earp, a great memoir of growing up in Dodge City, Kansas. Rebein, the author, is a master at evoking place, but then he was in my favorite place, the prairies of Kansas which was once an underground sea. He also captures the days of the American cowboy in truthful manner; their life was not the glamorous adventure portrayed by Clint Eastwood as Rowdy Yates.

Then I read local author Larry Wood's Murder and Mayhem in Missouri. Larry found some little known stories about some gruesome murders in this state. Much of it reads like a tale off Criminal Minds, CSI, or Dateline maybe. He also included a chapter on Jesse James' murder and the shootout in Kansas City that involved Pretty Boy Floyd.

Today I picked up Snow in August by Pete Hamill about a boy's growing up in post WWII Brooklyn. The title seemed appropriate today as the dark and damp invade crevices of my mind just like winter cold can do. Yet, I hear it will be summer again by the end of the week. Until it does arrive, I am putting on the tea kettle and turning pages!

                          What are YOU reading today?

Why does Blogger mess with my font?!?!