I AM AVID READER. I read the newspaper every morning, I read novels, scripts, books of poetry, I read course text books (even when not enrolled in the class). Mostly though, I read fiction and I like to buy the books I read, which are often award-winning novels and those that were short-listed. There are bookshelves in four different rooms my house one of them stacked two-deep with books.
In my bedroom, I keep books of poetry, spirituality, and Julia Cameron’s inspirational books about writing. In my office, two floor to ceiling bookshelves hold reference books, magazine, my journals, my poetry workbooks, business books, writing course assignments (past and present), drafts of a screenplay comprised of a stack of paper measuring 14 inches, and on the bottom shelf of one, hidden by the top of my desk that butts against the unit, sits a dozen or so Bobbsey Twin books from my pre-adolescence.
In my dining room there’s mostly fiction: hardbound and soft-cover novels of books I’ve purchased over the years. Books by some of my favourite authors sit on a shelf with family photos in the stairwell to the second floor. You can count Atwood, Davies, Findley, Govier, Munro, and Urquhart among the others here.
The enjoyment, and knowledge, I’ve gained from reading these books cannot be summed in an essay of this length. And would any avid reader really want to? It’s enough just to say that I think about the characters from time to time. Plots and story lines don’t always stay with me, but characters do.
Most recently, it was one line from a book that grabbed my attention and would not let go.
.JPG)
