Fiction
In reply to the discussion: I want to start a somewhat different sort of conversation here: What made you into a book reader? [View all]Old Crow
(2,264 posts)My parents had a set of shelves in the family room that were filled with books. On afternoons after school, I started to look through them out of boredom and opened a few that seemed interesting. There was a big, overstuffed bucket chair by the shelves, so reading was easy; before long, I was completely absorbed. Three titles in particular made a big impression. The beautiful prose in Updike's Rabbit, Run was absolutely entrancing. Crime and Punishment took me inside another human being's head in a way that I'd never known was possible: the guilt! And Catch-22 showed me shocking truths about life in a sometimes-crazy world that made my jaw drop: I can still remember being utterly stunned when an Italian wartime prostitute was pushed out of a window to her death and no one really cared.
In addition to the novels, I also found a copy of Strunk & White's The Elements of Style on those same shelves. I devoured it and read it several times.
Quite honestly, one of the biggest favors my parents ever did me was having copies of those books around. I strongly urge any parents of young children reading this to be sure hard copies of great novels are visible somewhere in the household. Don't hide them away in your bedroom. Put them in the living room or family room. Kids have a way of getting into things on their own and if good books are around, there's a real chance that they may stumble into a lifelong habit of reading great literature.
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