I read all books. Fiction, non-fiction, biographical, auto-biographical, fantastical, whimsical, autodidactical, political- I love them all.
That's not to say that I'm not particular about the kinds of books that I read. I am very particular. I have gone through phases of trying to read weighty tomes, intelligentsia texts, but found them so boring that I'd rather try to pass them as stools than pick them up and continue reading them. So then I've tried reading light and fluffy "chick-lit" books that dropped my IQ about 20 points and made me forget where I parked my car. This is a true story that I might tell one day.
My parents are not massive readers. My mum is a fan of the "Aussie battler comes good" genre- a tough talking girl rounding up the sheep on a station in outback QLD with only her old mate Bluey (the cattle dog) for company, but with a heart of gold, meets either similar tough talking shearer or fiddle playing nomadic gypsy type or young and dreamy but confused priest type and has torrid yet fulfilling affair that ends happily with them raising their little tough talking little tackers on the family farm, surviving droughts, evangelists, local town gossips and visits to the big smoke.
Dad likes non-fiction, I think. Our house was (still is, but I don't live there anymore) full of those 4 kilo huge pictorial hardcover books called "Australia", or "Wide Brown Land", or "God's Country", that could just be tools to illustrate the aforementioned stories of mum's -
13, 465, 871 pictures of the bush/scrub/outback, one picture of a beach, one picture of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. But I do remember him reading Wilbur Smith voraciously, along with my brother. They would go halves in the books, my brother would read them first, as he was the quicker reader, Dad would read them later. I remember reading a couple in my teens and being shocked at how much sex was in them. I didn't mind them much at that age, but have had to avoid them my whole life because I can't make the sex connection with my dad and brother. Surely this was awkward for them too? Maybe it's one of those boy things.
Dad was also a big reader of National Geographic. He has been a subscriber since about 1964 or so. We have shelves and shelves of them in our house, in mint condition. So I say he was a big reader of them, but I don't actually remember him reading them, as much as cataloging and rearranging them. He doesn't know, but I lost one of them- November 1994. I can't even remember how I lost it, but I lived in constant fear of the discovery for about 5 years, but I don't think he ever noticed. This particular edition had pictures of topless natives in it- this was the only reason I would read them. I did enjoy the huge maps that used to come with NG. I don't know if they still do, but they were fantastic. Really enormous, detailed maps of obscure places like Yukon Province, East Germany, The Himalayas and the Atlantic sea floor. Those maps were the best- I would spend hours on the bedroom floor with them poring over every detail.
My eldest brother, Jeff, to my knowledge, had never picked up a book and read it from cover to cover after the era of "Dick and Jane go to market". He tells me he has read 7 books as an adult- the entire Harry Potter series. I have to say, if you're going to go on a book fast, those books are a hell of a way to binge. Excellent taste.
My sister will go down in the annals of our family as the first reader, the youngest reader, possibly the best reader. My mum thinks we all have our particular talents and annoying quirks that developed as children. I apparently spoke within hours of being born (first word: "hello". Insightful.). Leanne did same with reading, or just about. Mum says she could read the newspaper from the age of two, Leanne maintains it was about 3 or 4. She is a big reader of the classics- Jane Austen, Charles Dickens. She introduced me to Charles Dickens and I am forever, eternally grateful.
But by far, the biggest influence on my reading habits (actually many, many habits- my sense of humour, my taste in music, my self-contained joy in irritating my mother) was my brother Rob. Closest to me in age, but still 8 years older, my sister Leanne saved my life, but my brother Rob fed my soul. He was the smartest, funniest, funnest, coolest person I knew, until the age of about 16 or 17. I told EVERYONE about him. I wanted to be just like him. The funny thing is, now that I think about it, I know I would have been his annoying little kid sister, and his influence on me certainly wasn't intentional. That's probably what made it all the more pervasive. But I loved everything he did. He had the best friends, the best clothes, the best toys (yes he had toys as a teenager. He still has toys as an adult). He watched the best shows, listened to the best music, ergo, he read the best books. He still influences so many things I read and listen to, he is still giving me casual little tips about books that I end up reading more fanatically than him. I might write more about his influence later, because it was just so massive that I could go on for another two hours about it.
Then there was me. Again, I might go into the childhood that I had that made me such a big reader, but not today. It's a bit too emotionally draining, and I think my baby is waking up. This "blog"- god I hate that term- is not for anyone but me, really. I have been thinking for years that I should devote more time to not just reading books, but reflecting on them and thinking about them in the context of my life. I keep a diary, and at the end of each day I write in there and usually write a couple of lines about the book I happen to be reading, but with the day to day minutiae of every day, it's usually just a little comment crammed in at the bottom of the page, so it's important that I make more of an effort than that.
But, if I know myself, this might fall by the wayside after a few entries, so I can't commit to anything big, Blogspot. It's not you, it's me. It's just not the right time in my life to make a big commitment to someone new. You've got other bloggers, you can make it work, there are other nice girls out there.
Etc.
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