I’ve been thinking about how my reading tastes have changed over the years beginning from my childhood love of books. We had only three television stations where/when I grew up in Western Colorado. We didn’t spend a lot of time in front of the television, so did games, played outside, and read.
The first time I remember falling in love with words and books was in fourth grade. My teacher, Mrs. Foster, used the entire last three months of the school year reading us books. I remember the wonderful stress-free time, gazing out the window, listening to her calm melodious voice reading from L’Engle (The Wrinkle in Time, Dr. Doolittle, Little Women & and couple for the boys (something about pirates). Mrs. Foster died that summer and the parents talked about it in hushed tones–something about cancer–and I never forgot her and never got over my love of books.
I graduated to books I found in the school and city library; Nancy Drew and then the Hardy boys; numerous other series and random books. During this time, it never occurred to me that there was a person behind these books–an author or authors.
Later on I moved on to more moody types of books; Edgar Allen Poe; Dickinson; Little Women, and yes–series romance books (although it didn’t take–I’m not very romantic).
I moved on to poetry, Sylvia Plath (although I was disappointed in her end and saddened by her depression), Virginia Woolf and various other rather moody female authors.
These days I like series mysteries as they are predictable and easy-to-read (not so easy to write, I’m finding). I love non-fiction too and especially biographies (mostly auto-bios–I like to hear it from the horse’s mouth).
There is nothing like a book to carry you away–a movie might do it, but reading allows you to put your own images beside the words.