I saw this on Vasilly’s blog the other day and decided today was the day to participate!
1. I was the first reader in my kindergarten classes, so I got to read to everyone quite frequently. I think I liked this, considering I continued reading to the years under me as I got older, but I don’t remember.
2. In second grade, I tried to read Little Women, but I found it too difficult. For some reason my second grade teacher thought I’d completed it and bragged about it to all the other kids. I tried to tell her I hadn’t actually finished it but eventually I got too embarrassed to say anything! I think my parents might even think I read it, so this might be news to them. I did read it in third grade and many times thereafter.
3. I discovered adult fantasy in high school when a friend of mine recommended The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan. Thank you, Tom, thank you, Robert Jordan; I fell in love with that series and only fell out of love when The Crossroads of Twilight came out and nothing happened in the entire book. (I later realized that almost all of my favorite YA books were either fantasy or historical fiction, something I should have thought about when I was looking for stuff to read.)
4. In fourth grade I read over 100 books in the school year. My teacher, however, stopped counting at 100 because the chart only fit that many. My mom was not too pleased that the teacher continued to reward other kids for their reading when she wasn’t even recording mine.
5. If I like the first book in a series, I will probably try to acquire all of them before I read another one. I like to bomb through series books one after another. I have actually tried not to do that in the past year or so because I realized I didn’t want to be left hanging for years and would rather wait a little longer between volumes. (George R.R. Martin, I’m looking at you for this one – understand but hating the wait!) I still buy them all though.
6. I have always been frustrated that no one in my family reads as quickly as I do/is willing to devote that much time to reading, nor do they really like the same kind of books. I always want to share what I read with everyone I know, but it’s hard when no one is interested.
7. This brings me to my last point, which is that I have a horrible but strange memory. It’s horrible because I can barely ever remember what I read a month ago, let alone a year ago. This is why I started reviewing as well as #6. Keith sometimes reads the fantasy chunksters that I like, but he’s so busy that by the time he finishes the book, I’ve forgotten anything beyond the basic outline of the book. I blame this partly on the fact that I’m a natural re-reader and haven’t been able to indulge my tendencies since my TBR pile got out of control. As a kid I never had to retain what I read because I knew I’d just read it over in a couple of months if I liked it. I didn’t get new books too often and when I did, they were YA books so I could read several in a day if I felt like it. My imposing TBR mountain range has made this very difficult. My memory is strange because I can remember every book I own and I never buy duplicates. I couldn’t recite them, but if I see a book in a store I will know whether I own it or have read it even if I remember nothing about what actually happened in the book.
Feel free to play along!
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