15 Things about Me and Books

Stolen from the most wonderous Trista.

1. I don't read enough anymore.
2. I grew up around books. My mother was an English teacher and so was her mother.
3. I started reading at three or four years old.
4. When I was in second grade I transferred from private to public school halfway through the year. By the end of the year I'd out-read every kid in my classroom. I got an award, homemade brownies and a green sparkly ball.
5. In elementary school THEY allowed me to check out books from the big kids' section when all my other classmates were still reading picture books.
6. I read Clan of the Cavebear in third grade. I still don't know why.
7. In fifth grade I had my books taken away because I was reading through class and not doing my schoolwork.
8. I'm convinced I ruined my eyes by reading under the covers for hours with a flashlight.
9. One time I finished a book (Fall on your Knees by Ann-Marie MacDonald, long before it became an Oprah book club selection) while driving across the 520 bridge in commuter traffic. I cried the entire way home.
   
10. I'm amazed when people don't have bookcases full of books. What's wrong with them?
11. I can give away books but I can't sell them. It feels tawdry, like a betray of the time we've spent together.
12. The innocence of youth: I read To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf and Les Miserables by Victor Hugo when I was in high school.
    
13. I don't read books I loved as a kid because I'm always disappointed in them. They're never as wonderful as I remember so I let them live in my memory. Except for Watership Down. That book never fails me.
14. I convinced my entire family (we're a small family) to read scenes from Macbeth last Christmas.
15. My love of reading culminated in a BA in English, the second most useless degree, next to philosophy, when it comes to getting a job.