I made three New Year resolutions for 2010.
The first was to maintain the weight loss I had accomplished last year. Losing weight and getting fit were my only resolutions for 2009 and I managed to shed a quarter of my body weight and have my doctor tell me “whatever you’re doing, keep doing it!” (Hooray) But now I have to take New Year resolutions seriously. (Boo)
My second resolution was to make a real effort to keep in touch with friends, old and new, real and virtual. For the latter, of course, I have to keep this blog current. (Hooray) But here I am, last day of January, making my first post of the year. (Boo)
My third resolution will very probably be the death of me. I was drunk daft enough to resolve in front of witnesses that I will not buy one single book until I have cleared my shelves, tables, desks and floor of all the books waiting to be read. At last count, there were 231 books in that category. (Hooray) Since January 1, I have managed to read only nine of them, which means I can’t buy any more books until the end of 2011. (BIG FAT BOO)
For me, not buying books is like an alcoholic taking the Pledge or a crack addict becoming a nun. My friendly online bookstore, (cough) Indigo (cough), which has just declared its first ever operating profit, might even go bankrupt, while the Canadian consumer spending index will dive.
Family legend has it that I have been reading since before I could speak. The story goes that my father came home from work one day and found me, a mute three year old to that point, sitting on the floor in the middle of the Irish Times. Why I was mute is a story for another time. Suffice to say that, when he enquired of my mother what I was doing with his newspaper, both parents were dumbfounded to hear me reply “I’m reading it.” I’d love to be able to say I remember the occasion, but I cannot tell a lie: I don’t. However, I do remember, at an even earlier age, sitting on my Dad’s lap every evening while he read Kipling’s Mowgli stories to me and my older brother and sister. He moved his finger along the words as he read, presumably for my benefit, which is probably how I learned to read. (It may also be the reason I fell in love with my first serious boyfriend when he took me to see Disney’s Jungle Book. Big mistake, but that, too, is a story for another time!)
In defiance of the accepted wisdom that reading to your kids every night will turn them into readers, none of my siblings developed an interest in reading and there were very few children’s books in our house. But we lived next door to a family of book lovers, who gave me free run of their house and the books they had outgrown and stored in their attic. Every day, after school, I would let myself into their house, empty while they were all out at work, and settle down in the attic until somebody arrived home, or I was called to supper by my mother. This routine continued until I was about nine, and had the added benefit of keeping me out of reach of my older sister, AKA The She-Devil. At that time, the man of the house, who had been in a long term care hospital for years, died and the family decided to sell up and move away. But before they left, they presented me with the contents of the attic, including the book cases to hold them.
As you can imagine, I was in seventh heaven. But this turn of events did put me back within reach of The She-Devil. Despite the fact that she was actually a very stupid girl, she never seemed to have any problem coming up with fiendish ways to torment me and, this time around, she found a beaut. We had a black lead range in our kitchen, which my mother kept fired up all day, every day. My sister would sit and watch me reading by the heat of the range and, just before I reached the end of a book, she would grab it from me and hurl it into the coals, using the poker to make sure it caught alight. To this day, I have to make a real effort not to read the last pages of a book first.
I’m partway through Amy Tan’s Saving Fish from Drowning. I think I will try to finish it this evening, so that I can say I have made inroads on ten books so far this year. But I will be back. After all, there is that second New Year resolution to keep.
I’ve tried to read more this year too, largely because I get frightened when I think about the amount of incredible books that I won’t get around to reading in my lifetime.
I think I’m on five so far this year, if that makes you feel any better.
I’m surprised you have any time to read at all, Andrew, what with wedding preparations and all!
What heavenly neighbors to have — along with such a fiendish sister. I was born into a family of beautiful people who worried about my overbite, my plumpness, my lack of popularity and my serious reading habit.
My mother never really worried about me at all; she was too wrapped up in the She-Devil. But she did predict that all that reading was going to scramble my brain. And she may well have been right.”
I think you should do a book report for each book you read right here.
Sure, I will. Not. Great way to turn reading into a chore! One of the reasons I failed the 100 books in 2009 Challenge was that I agreed to review some books on my blog. And then I could no longer enjoy reading for its own sake. Remember, I’m Irish. As soon as something becomes a duty, I no longer want to do it, no matter how much I previously enjoyed it.
I was impressed last year when you signed up to read 100 books…I loved your reading stories and I hope you keep up the resolution to blog more this year.
My family were mostly readers, and when I was a teenager my mother, sisters and I used to read out loud to each other in the evenings in Florida (while we did needlework)! This is all on the distaff side, though. I remember my father insisting that only the young read novels, and in the 20 years I was married to him, my ex husband only read one novel (The Name of the Rose). The year after we were divorced he read Captain Correlli’s Mandolin. Other than that he mostly read time management books. And my mother declared that one of her brothers, long dead, never read anything but the RCA.
Apparently 80% of fiction is bought by women.
My older son reads novels and my younger son has read more plays than you can shake a stick at, so maybe the gender gap is narrowing.
Reading to each other as you do needlework, like a scene from Little Women; how I envy you. I read aloud to #1 Son from the time he was a baby, not just stories at bedtime, but also from the newspaper as he was slurping his bottle. And I labelled everything in our flat – doors, walls, fridge etc. – in the hope he would become interested in words per se. He didn’t begin reading for himself until he was almost 6, but when he started, he took off at a gallop. The first book he read was The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, because he wouldn’t believe me that it had a character named Slartibartfast, and he’s been an avid reader ever since, with a catholic taste in books. I can’t imagine having a child that didn’t like to read; it would be like giving birth to an alien. I’m glad your sons aren’t aliens.
That explains your book buying compulsion methinks. And the reason you don’t always read them.
What a mean sister. She must have been jealous of your intelligence indeed if she had to demonstrate it that violently in order to gain the upper hand. Or even just a perverse sort of equality in her eyes.
Re the blogging – even I can manage once a fortnight at worst. The trick is to alternate short and long ones if time is at a premium. And something short can be as good or pithy as something long.
Oh I don’t think the She-Devil ever saw my intelligence as anything more than a poor consolation prize for not being as pretty and personable as she was. She just never forgave me for coming along five years after her and screwing up the family dynamic, which had revolved around her until then.
Good advice on the blogging. I think about stuff I’d like to blog all the time, but I just never seem to get around to it.
By the by, your comments box is almost invisible! It took me ages to realise you hadn’t disabled your comments function entirely. You might be missing some comments this way.
Thanks for pointing this out, Laura. I’m waiting for #1 Son to get his act together and re-design for me. But maybe I’ll add some kind of rider to future posts while I’m waiting.
Well me to on the 100 books and I was so upset when I counted them all and there was only 51 ;^(
So far, nearly 6 and if I don’t like one, for any reason, I toss it right away.
As to the she-devil, good lord, what a monster. Are you even remotely friendly today? I’d be terrified of her.
Yes, even a few lines of blogging is good, I write short ones or little poems or even cartoons sometimes.
so good to have you back!!!!
XO
WWW
Hey you! It’s good to be back. Like you, if I don’t like what I’m reading, I chuck it. Life’s too short and there are too many good books out there to be wasting time on something some friends swears I’ll just love. (Especially as I have one dear friend who keeps slipping me religious books on the pretext that they’re a great read. Which, so far, none of them has been.)
No, the She-Devil and I do not communicate at all, haven’t done for many years. She still resents me for being alive and I can’t forget the miseries she put me through. Besides, she’s as daft as a brush.
[...] pursuit of my third New Year Resolution, I have been ploughing through books at a rate of knots since January 1st. Although I’ve [...]