Barbara H. of Stray Thoughts has tagged me for a meme devised for bookish types. She developed it herself, and anyone who’s interested is invited to join in. It’s kind of like being interviewed, but with more time to think! If you decide to join in, let me know; I’d love to read your answers! Here goes:

1. Do you remember how you developed a love for reading? I learned to read in kindergarten, before it was taught in school. I don’t remember figuring it out, but it probably had to do with being read to regularly as a child, and watching The Electric Company on television. Here’s a sample (Consider the video quality as the technological equivalent of an antique finish on furniture!):

As far as how my parents discovered I could read, here’s how the story goes: I was at the store with my mother, asking for a box of Barnum’s animal crackers as always. When she handed it to me, I looked at it and asked skeptically, “Why do they call these crackers when it says they’re cookies right on the box?”

2. What are some books you read as a child? I guess it depends on how you define “child.” I’ll just go with some of the earliest ones here: Go Away Dog is the book I read to my kindergarten teacher to prove that I could read. Rabbit and Skunk and the Scary Rock was a favorite that my dad read to me — he did a fantastic job making the weird noises the rock makes. The Clifford stories, Mother Goose rhymes, Brer Rabbit stories, Dr. Suess and Black Beauty (a picture book version) are also early reading adventures I remember. (Now that I’m remembering, the list is getting longer and longer… so I’ll just stop there!) 

3. What is your favorite genre? Novels. 

4. Do you have a favorite novel? Several that I can think of off the top of my head: The Memory of Old Jack, Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, Bleak House, The Lord of the Rings, Narnia stories, space trilogy (hmm, that reminds me — it’s about time to reread That Hideous Strength and see if I totally grasp it yet)…

5. Where do you usually read? Wherever I can prop myself up and stay awake: on the couch, on the bed, in a waiting room, on the swing outside. I’m not so good in the car — I get carsick. And my phase of life doesn’t allow me to escape into the bathroom long enough to exploit its lovely privacy. :-) 

6. When do you usually read? Afternoons and evenings. 

7. Do you usually have more than one book you are reading at a time? I’m a one-book-at-a-time kind of a gal. If I get more than one going at once, I don’t finish them.

8. Do you read nonfiction in a different way or place than you read fiction? I should — but no, not substantially different. I may annotate and underline nonfiction a little more. I should take notes and make an outline of the argument as I go, but I’m afraid it will cause me to run aground, so I just plow ahead and hope I absorb the basic outline as I go. I do think Bible-reading is unique… I tend to put it in a different category than other reading, though it’s one of the constants of my life.

9. Do you buy most of the books you read, or borrow them, or check them out of the library? I’ve spent the majority of my life as a snob who only reads what I buy, but in the last year or two I’ve rediscovered the library, and now I try to get everything I need through the shelves there, or interlibrary loan. It’s jump-started my reading. And it’s been well worth having to pay the $30 membership per year… I’ve probably read about a thousand’s worth, between myself and my children, already.

10. Do you keep most of the books you buy? If not, what do you do with them? I do keep them. A lot of them I haven’t finished with, and some I’m just attached to. (Bibliolatry, I guess.) When I was in graduate school, my dissertation director liked to frequent used bookstores, and he absolutely deluged me with books. He had realized I didn’t have much of a book-buying margin as a grad student on a teaching assistantship, and he was a generous person. I haven’t read them all yet! Most of them are books on autobiography, or nature writing. I’ll read them all before I’m done, if for no other reason than gratitude.  

11. If you have children, what are some of the favorite books you have shared with them? Were they some of the same ones you read as a child? The Narnia books, the Little House books, and various horse stories, for my older daughter (7). The Clifford stories for my younger daughter (4). Bible stories for both of them.

12. What are you reading now? Never Let Me Go,  by Kazuo Ishiguro.

13. Do you keep a TBR (to be read) list? Only unofficially… If someone makes a recommendation on my blog or in an email, I consider that my written record. And I made nominal commitments in a few reading challenges this year. I don’t want to hem in my reading choices much at this stage of life; in all those years of school, I feel like I paid my dues!

14. What’s next? Ender’s Shadow, by Orson Scott Card, checked out of the library and waiting for me on my shelf upstairs.

15. What books would you like to reread? Gosh, no way I can answer this one. The favorites I listed above get reread regularly, along with a few others that escape me at the moment. I think rereading is important… Books are as much a way of documenting our own lives as photo albums, and revisiting them shows us who we are, and who we’re becoming.

16. Who are your favorite authors? C.S. Lewis, Wendell Berry, Elisabeth Elliott, Dickens, the Brontes, various nature writers, J.R.R. Tolkien… Who else am I not thinking of? Probably the wisest answer would be, I have different “favorites” at different seasons of life (as determined by how much of them I read), but these are ones that stand the test of time.