Reading and books and stories were always there, like food or parents or furniture. I loved books with pictures. I loved hearing stories improvised. I loved books without pictures, or magazines, or any words written anywhere.
Early stories were from my dad, and were Greek mythology and Tolkien. Early books were thrust upon me by my elementary school teacher Mrs. Howard, and included Shark Lady by Eugenie Clark, Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech, Cheaper by the Dozen by the Galbraiths, the Edward Eagers, the Konigsburgs, and absolutely the Roald Dahls.
I didn't eat without a book at the table. Mom couldn't ground me to my room--I was there anyway, reading. I handed out books to my friends like potato chips, like Bibles. Make-believe play with my friends was complex and intricately woven tales with faeries, pirates, clock-makers, scientists, ballerinas.
Book-reading in junior high and high school broadened horizons. I read Ayn Rand, Kurt Vonnegut, Michael Crichton, Charles Dickens. I awaited Lemony Snicket's book releases like they were fish to seize and devour.
I slipped into post-high-school awkward early adulthood and read the downers: Sylvia Plath, Jack Kerouac, Hunter S. Thompson. Now, at 25, my tastes are various and eclectic.
My first tendency is middle grade novels. The covers themselves shout at me in the bookstores, because they're the most full of life. But I'll really read anything.
I constantly think about what I've read, but the books that creep into my mind lately are Erin Morgenstern's The Night Circus, Colin Meloy's Wildwood, and Cannery Row by John Steinbeck.
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