Wednesday, September 17

 

Sometimes I come across a sentence in something I’m reading which stops me in my track.  It might be a reference to somebody I’ve heard about or a word that reminds me of a past experience.  Today it was a question asked, innocently by one character to another.  The question was, “What book have you read which changed your life?”

There’s an assumption there that everyone will experience that life-changing moment, or that people will recognize it when it occurs, and each of those assumptions , of course, is nonsense.  The avid reader of Mills and Boon novels or the devourer of Jack Reacher may never feel the sense of revelation implied by the original question but that’s avoiding the point.  It’s not just about the content of the book being read but it may be about the very act of reading.

If a person is not a reader, their life may be narrower and less invigorating than someone who can experience what it is like to be in someone else’s shoes.  When I read a simple detective story by someone like Stephen Booth, I can vicariously experience what it is like to be on the moors in England in a snowstorm trying to make my way back to my car without a torch.

So, I, of course, have tried to think of the book which changed my life and I can’t get past the book which I was given, I think, for my seventh birthday in 1950.  It was Rubbalong Tales by Enid Blyton.  I couldn’t put it down and I think that book, more than any other, sparked my lifelong love of reading

By the way, I saw a copy of the book for sale on the internet.  It was the 1950 edition with original dustcover and was only $78.  My copy, without dust cover, may still exist, in a box in Jamie’s garage.  I might go looking for it one day.