When I was a young kid, elementary school age, as mention in a previous post, I had trouble reading. My parents took me to a special extra-curricular study place called The Reading Game.
It is no longer there. The building torn down and replaced by a multi-use apartment complex for students and others from the nearby University.
Reading their remedial booklets went on for many money, I no longer remember how long I attended there.
Then one day I picked up a comic book (I’ve already written about How I got that first comic), and it all changed. I was enjoying reading.
My parent’s asked the instructor if it was okay for me to be reading comics. The response was simple. If he’s reading, done stop him. Encourage him. And so, I have been reading comic books my entire life.
The next thing that got me further into reading was a series of books called: Choose Your Own Adventure. They were fantastic, especially as you could read it three or four times and get an entirely different story each time. Probably the only regular books I checked out of the school library.
(My relationships with libraries is a story unto itself.)
Comics would remain my mainstay reading content.
The reading material assigned to me in class, continued to be a struggle, hard to remain focused on whether it be elementary, junior high, or high school. It would be these outside sources, especially comics, where I could grow and learn.
If I could read something at my own pace, I could enjoy it. If it was an assigned book or chapter, I’d force my way through it but it was always a struggle, and I didn’t always learn anything from it unless the topic was of great interest to me and brought me enjoyment.
I’d later learn to enjoy doing research, but I had to find something interesting in it, something that was fun, in order to devote that much time to it. Otherwise, it was a real struggled.
The first real novel I thing I read was HG Wells’ The Time Machine.
I eventually discover the short stories and novels of Ray Bradbury. Then I found the essays of Harlan Ellison. So you know my creativity and learning process was growing.
Again, it would take an interest to get me to start and then complete reading of a book.
I remember reading a Shakespeare play in high school and enjoyed it, followed by Arthur Miller’s play the Crucible. Probably reading these in script format was probably easier than a full out novel.
During college and friend introduced me to two book series. Since I enjoyed Watch Doctor Who he thought I would like Douglas Adam’s Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. Which resulted in my writing several stories for class in Adam’s voice. I don’t think my teacher appreciated it.
He then introduced me to Steven R Lawhead’s Pendragon Cycle. Looking back, I am still surprised by how fast I read through these books. They were heavy novels (figuratively and literally). I greatly enjoyed the books.
Over the years I would become more and more of a reader, but finding the books that appealed to me, that I enjoyed wasn’t always easy. The number of books I have read, per year, has been relatively few.
Sometimes it was the type of book, the type genre.
“So, what’s your favorite fiction genre?” – Here we are back at this question again, remember my last post.
As to Genre, I think the answer is the same as my “Doctor Who” answer previously:
I will admit I don’t like Horror, but when it comes to the rest of the genres.
“I like the one I am currently reading.”
I grew up on super hero comics, which lead into science fiction and fantasy, and especially mystery/detective fiction. Plus, over the last decade or so I’ve discovered a love for romance novels.
The first romance books I read were fantasy romance, about dragons.
Then I discovered a series called Once Upon A Con by Ashley Poston, starting with Geekerella. Telling a story that took place around a Comic Con, you had me, but these were fantastic stories, and I’ve been all of Poston’s books since.
Because of Poston, I’ve discovered other great romance authors.
Since the start of this year, I have read more books than I have in any full year I have ever had, and they were all Romance novels. Sure, they were all light novels, but still, it’s quite different for me.
Will Romance remain my Favorite Genre? Probably not, I’ll shift back to Mystery and Fantasy, Science Fiction, and shift back around again.
Looking back that the little kid I was, I am still so surprised by how much I am currently reading.
Reading is fantastic. Enjoy it.