I like to read. I can’t remember a time when I didn’t like to read. Even when I’m in a low reading phase I’m usually still reading something. Sometimes it’s magazines or web sites, or the shampoo bottle but I usually read, something.
Driving around new places can be dangerous because I read the signs. I read the signs on the buildings when I’m at a stop light, or the billboards along the freeway. That’s even when I’ve read them hundreds of times before. They are letters that form words that are meant to be read.
I don’t doubt this comes from my parents. I remember going to the public library once a week as a kid. Ok, it was movie night and it was free. So were the books. We never got there only just in time for the movie, always early. And rarely, if ever did we leave right after the movie. My parents were attending college as adults and they often had research to do, so we were there until they were done or the library closed. Most of the time we were all taking home books.
Libraries are great places. You can learn so much there. More than once the library has been my regular ‘baby sitter’. When my parents were attending community college they had one night class. Rather than leave my sister and me at home to sit and play or watch TV, they decided spending one evening a week on a college campus, in the library would be a good experience for us.
A few years later when living with my other family, the library again became my periodic ‘sitter’. They had a weekly bowling league they participated in as did my grand parents. Sometimes I would go with them and sit there waiting for them to get done. Other times they would drop me off at the library and pick me up when they were finished.
From libraries we moved to used book stores. Not sure why except perhaps because the books were inexpensive, and you could find cool stuff like the leather bound copy that I have of “The Taming of the Shrew” by William Shakespeare. Not only is it leather bound, it is also the size of a credit card though a bit thicker.
At some point we moved on to new book, book stores. I’m not sure when that happened. I suppose some of the first ones were the ones in the malls and maybe that one that friend, Betty owned in the desert.
I think the most enticing and intoxicating were the big chains with rows and rows of books, a cafe, and bathrooms. Like a library with food. Well, sort of. When these places first became a big deal they had the attitude that people should come in, stay for a while, read some of the books for a bit. People should stay as long as they like. And they didn’t keep bankers hours. I had a friend in college who would, after class, stop at the bookstore for a while on his way to work because the bookstore was open late. Class let out just before 10pm and he didn’t have to be to work until after 11pm. Every night he’d go there, pick up the same book and start reading where he left off.
I’ve gone back to the library at times as well. It’s a little easier on the wallet, especially when it is nothing to leave there with 3, 5, 8 books at a time. I do this with bookstores too. The advantage of the library is that you know what you are doing with the books when you are done reading them. You are taking them right back to the library. With books you purchase, you have to decide what to do with them once you’ve read them. Donate them, keep them. More than once I have lamented the lack of shelf space, usually right after the trip to the bookstore where I have purchased a big chunk of my summer reading.
So what’s the point of this trip down memory lane via book stores and libraries? I use it to encourage others to support your library by using it and support the book stores by frequenting them.
Unfortunately, though my family are big readers and therefore supporters of libraries and bookstores, it seems we are in the minority these days. If we weren’t, major book stores wouldn’t be closing. Seriously, we’ve spent enough money and time in one book store that if we had moved away, they might have gone out of business long ago.
Reading needs to be encouraged. Not just so our kids grow up reading and loving it. We need to encourage our friends and co-workers to read as well. My family often watches TV through a book, and we take books to the movies so we have something to do while we wait for the movie to start. I think it would be cool to walk into a restaurant, or lunch room, or bar where most everyone had their nose in a book, magazine or newspaper. Or a movie theater where, instead of fidgety kids and impatient parents, the kids had a book or comic and so did the parents.
What if having a whole bunch of books that you had read was as cool as the high score in some video game or the latest gadget or the fancy sneakers? Yeah, sadly, the chance of that happening any time soon is less than slim. But wouldn’t it be cool