A History of The Reader

I probably started reading about the same time as everyone else, kindergarten or first grade. It wasn't hard for me, though, and soon I was reading just about everything I could get my grubby little hands on. My mother, also, was a huge reader, so there were always books in the house for me to read. Once I could read, though, I didn't want to have stories read to me anymore, because, hey, I can read them myself, thankyouverymuch.

I used to compete with a friend in grade school to see who could read the most horse books. Whenever one of us would get a new horse book that the other hadn't read, it was a big deal. The bookmobile driver would hold back the books for us, and we'd fight over who got what book first.

Eventually, I moved out of the horse genre (but I do still have most of those books somewhere, The Valley of the Ponies still being one of my most favorite horse books around) and moved into The Babysitters Club, the Mandy series, Choose Your Own Adventure, Judy Blume, and more. My mom would also bring home books out of series that she would find, so I had some slightly obscure series such as the Drina books, Bad News Ballet, and The Secret of the Unicorn. High School saw me go through a Steven King phase (like most high schoolers, I'm sure), and I discovered the fantasy genre. I about lived in the library over summer vacations, and usually had the maximum amount of books allowed to be taken out of the library at any given time.

I almost exclusively read fantasy through college and beyond. I didn't start broadening my reading horizons until my mom and I started hitting the fleamarket about 5 years ago and finding a wealth of books for $1 or less. Let me tell you, there are just not a whole lot of fantasy books at fleamarkets, so I had to branch out. Plus, my mom would read something and then pass it along to me. I started reading more literature, more mysteries, and I discovered the guilty pleasure genre of chick lit. We had to start carrying around a small notebook to write our purchases in so that we didn't double buy (though at a $1, it wasn't too big of a deal).

Currently, I read around 2 books a week, depending on the size. My husband is good at finding used book stores, so now I can start trading in the books I've read in return for store credit. I used to be a book hoarder, but that's because I love to go back and reread favorite books. But since the advent of the $1 fleamarket book, I now had a quantity of "read but I'll probably not read again" books, so this is just perfect. It's also a great way to try out new books without having to pay $8-10. If I pay $.60 for a book and don't like it, no big deal. I pay $8 for a book and hate it....I'm out $8.

Favorite book: Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
Favorite series: The Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon
Favorite guilty pleasure books: cheezy teen horror ala RL Stine and Christopher Pike
Favorite fantasy author: Mercedes Lackey
Favorite horror/mystery writers: Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child
Strangest like: JD Robb books (considering I can't even make it through a Nora Roberts book)
Favorite Author-who-isn't-published-yet: Jill Christine
Favorite photo webcomic: Kimono's Townhouse (Geek Humor in a Pink World)
Favorite drawn webcomic: College Roomies from Hell

I'm always on the lookout for suggestions for good books to read. Who knows, maybe you'll show up on Books You Should Be Reading. See you all on Friday with the very first book!

++The Reader++