Seven Things About Spencer as a Reader

1. Currently, I don't have any traditional library cards. I haven't had any, nor have I wanted any, for some years now; not since one library tried to charge me something like a $15.00 fee (I forget the exact amount, but it was in the 12 to 20 dollar range) for a DVD that was returned only a couple of days late. I circular-filed my card rather than pay the fine! However, I have something much better than any traditional library card. I have a computer with an ISP connection (that works most days) via which I can access the largest library in the known universe, otherwise known as "The Internet." Indeed, I am a person who reads extensively and constantly, but not usually by turning pages in physical "books" anymore. Most of what I read nowadays is found on the Internet where the entire contents of many thousands of books can be found, and where the online editions of many thousands of newspapers and magazines reside.

2. Don't misunderstand. I have not abandoned books entirely. In fact, I still buy physical books frequently. Mostly, I buy them online and have them shipped to me. It's just that I now read them at a much slower rate of consumption (i.e., the number of books read per year) than I once did. During the dozen years from about the age of 12 through age 23, I easily read a couple of thousand books; and, for some odd reason, quite early on in that span of time, I had figured out that if a person was going to spend innumerable hours reading books, it made much more sense to read the highest quality books that one was capable of reading. Thus, my list of "titles read" during those years includes many more examples from among "the classic books of world literature" than it does from other areas. Not to say that I haven't read my share of "popular fiction." I've read virtually all of the novels and short stories by Ian Fleming and Sir Arthur Conon Doyle; much of the output from the likes of Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler and Ross Macdonald; and a fair bit of John Le Carré and Len Deighton.

3. So, outside of the authors cited just above, who actually ARE my "personal favorite" authors? Here is a rough list in alphabetical order:
Kingsley Amis
Jane Austen
John Barth
L. Frank Baum
Saul Bellow
Charles Bukowski
Anthony Burgess
William S. Burroughs
Albert Camus
Lewis Carroll
Miguel de Cervantes
E.L. Doctorow
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Alexandre Dumas
Lawrence Durrell
F. Scott Fitzgerald
John Fowles
Carlos Fuentes
Gabriel García Márquez
William Goldman
Kenneth Grahame
Graham Greene
Joseph Heller
Ernest Hemingway
Victor Hugo
James Joyce
Ken Kesey
Rudyard Kipling
Milan Kundera
D.H. Lawrence
Jeremy Leven
Malcolm Lowry
Norman Mailer
Thomas Mann
W. Somerset Maugham
Herman Melville
Henry Miller
Iris Murdoch
Vladmir Nabokov
George Orwell
Robert Pirsig
Anthony Powell
Marcel Proust
Thomas Pynchon
François Rabelais
J.D. Salinger
Sir Walter Scott
John Steinbeck
Robert Louis Stevenson
Jonathan Swift
Hunter S. Thompson
Henry David Thoreau
J.R.R. Tolkien
Mark Twain
John Updike
Jules Verne
Gore Vidal
Kurt Vonnegut
Alan W. Watts
H. G. Wells
Irvine Welsh
Oscar Wilde
P. G. Wodehouse
Tom Wolfe

4. I have read all of the "books" of the Old and New Testaments of the Holy Bible several times in various different translations. What do I think of it? It's an interesting anthology of a specific historical culture's literature, written in a number of different styles, genres, and levels of quality; and it's written with various assorted purposes and intents in mind. Is it an unified whole to be "believed in" by its readers? No, and certainly no more than are the Norton (or Oxford) anthologies of British or American Literatures, books to be "believe in" and "followed." And I would say the same thing about all of the "sacred books" of all of the other religions of the world, also.

5. What do I consider to be THE single most important "book" that any reader should attempt to master in his life? That would be one of two books: Either the Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language, or (for the truly ambitious) the complete multi-volume set of the Oxford English Dictionary. If a reader does not understand what all of the words mean, then he or she can read books until doomsday and never really get as much out of many of them as the authors of those books put into them!

6. I read more slowly than many people I know, both in terms of my innate capacity to "take in" sentences and paragraphs at a speed that is too much above that of the pace of normal speech, and also in terms of my "style" of reading where I will frequently reread some sentence or paragraph or page numerous times (either to fully grasp it, or to fully appreciate and enjoy it) before leaving it and pressing on to the next sentence or paragraph or page. So, this means I find reading (at least when reading anything that's much above the level of the average article in-- oh, let's say-- Slate Magazine, or The New Republic, or the New Yorker Magazine; or anything that's much beyond their lengths) to be something of an effort. Thus, when choosing such higher level (or longer) things to read, I try to stick with only the very BEST of what has been written, and I often rely, in advance, on multiple reviews of a given book to indicate to me if it is really worth the effort. The two big up-sides of this, are (1) that I seldom ever end up even beginning any books that I ultimately find to be so boring or so poorly written that I want to abandon them; and (2) that I tend to remember for years, and in some detail, quite a bit of what I read.

7. I probably own in the neighborhood of 5,000 (plus) books that range in production quality from old used paperbacks, or hardback books I bought for 25 cents each at Library sales, all the way up to some relatively expensive leather-bound editions. My collection of books is probably split roughly 50/50 between paperbacks (both the mass market and the trade size) and standard edition hardbacks. And in certain cases-- especially with a small number of top favorite books, or with a few books that I have tended to repeatedly give away to others-- I will own multiple copies of those titles. Since most of my books are currently kept in boxes, in storage, due to the circumstances of my travels and present living conditions, I am hoping to eventually live in a home with an extensive "floor to ceiling" library room of built-in shelving similar to those one sees in various older movies, back in the days when people actually owned books and sometimes even read them! Dream on, eh?

Seven Things About Kate as a Reader

1. I currently have four active library cards.I love libraries. They are a wondrous place filled with books I can bring home for free. when I was growing up, our local library only let kids take out two books at a time. Not sure why that is. But I was an exception. I would check out bags full of books and bring them all back within the week ready for more. I still have memorized where my favorite books were shelved at that library.

2. I also love to OWN books. When I was young, that is where ALL my money went. Actually not much has changed. Well, a little has--I used to buy books like crazy before I started to run out of room. Now I'm trying restrict my purchases to books I love or if I buy a book that is only so-so, I resell it or give it away. Owning books enables me to experience the joy in lending beloved books to friends. When I was 9, I bought some blank library cards and affixed them to the back covers of all my books using paper clips and then proceeded to bring them to school creating a little lending library for my friends. Every once in awhile I still find old books with their library cards clipped inside the back cover.

3. I go through stages as a reader--mild obsessions with authors, genres, topics, etc. This is not unlike my life in general. I tend to get excited about something new and that continues until the next new thing comes along. Gemini fickleness, I know. I've been through the series books obsession (Nancy Drew, Judy Bolton, Girls of Canby Hall, Seniors, Sweet Valley High, and though this has left me I am still a bit hooked on Stephanie Plum books). I've been through my books turned TV mini-series stage in which I loved the John Jakes trilogy and some Belva Plain and Sidney Sheldon books. I got sucked into the Oprah book club trend for awhile. I went through my Brit lit chick lit phase launched by Bridget Jones and Becky Bloomwood. Not long ago I started sampling graphic novels though it's not a full blown phase yet. I think I am now all over the place with my book loves.

4. I've had some great reading mentors in my life. When I was in 4th grade, my Aunt Heather's sister Bonnie sent me grocery bags full of books from her private collection. I remember the Carol Ryrie Brink books best of all. Bonnie was a teacher in another town and liked the idea of encouraging a voracious reader. I blame some of my love of reading on her! My dad was also a huge influence. He is willing to read almost anything and often pressed books into my eager hands, at times books that weren't particularly age appropriate, but made me feel like we were co-conspirators in the world of books. It made me feel grown up and eager to discover books I could hand to him with the same sort of ceremony. I used to read aloud to my mom in the car when we'd do road trips--before the popularity of the audiobook.

5. I initially choose books for their covers. Or because someone recommended it. Or because I like the author. Often I'll go into Barnes and Noble and sit down with a stack of ten books and read the first few pages of each narrowing and selecting based on that. I don't like to read the backs of books or to read reviews, for fear of too much being given away. I really like to approach a book fresh with an open mind and experience it as it unfolds before me. I've also been in a book club for seven years and it's responsible for introducing me to all sorts of authors and books I might never have read.

6. I easily own hundreds of books that I've bought but haven't read because I keep finding more books to read. I can't keep up. There are tons of classics I want to read and there's always a book for book club looming. I need to temper my challenging reads with a fluffy fiction (something that reads quickly with ease) or a young adult book. I tend to read at least one fiction and one nonfiction book at a time. I need a different book for different moods. I like it best when I get obsessed with a book and it goes everywhere with me. I've actually been a danger on the streets when I pull out a book to read while I'm stopped at a stop light. Before audiobooks got popular, I actually READ books while driving... I grew up in theMidwest where roads are flat and straight and this was less dangerous than it sounds.

7. Books are precious, precious things to me. Some of my dearest possessions are books and the memories wrapped around those. When my grandma died the only thing of hers I really wanted was her collection of Hans Christian Anderson fairy tales because I have such strong memories of sitting tucked up beside her on the couch and her reading The Wild Swans. I recall reading The Boxcar Children to my own brother and sister and later to my youngest sister I read Because of Winn Dixie--a great dog book after she lost her own dog. Tale of Two cities left a permanent mark on my 18 year old self and To Kill a Mockingbird is part of my soul. After I read The Secret Garden I tried to make one of my own hidden away in a grove of trees on our farm. I love the way Anne of Green Gables books spoke to me, to the girl in me and opened my eyes to another world and another place. So many books have touched my heart and taught me lessons, directed my travels, and fulfilled my appetite for adventure. I read like I breathe. It is necessary. It's the whole point.

The seven things about me as a reader idea came from here.
--Kate