Finding a New New Year's Resolution

I think that my New Year resolution will be to read more books.

Despite the fact that both of my parents were big readers, I was not.  Dad would read most anything. Mom often read books that, from my kid point of view, seemed like soap operas. They both loved a good story. They could recognize good literature from fluff but seemed to enjoy both. Dad liked reading books about interesting people like athletes, politicians, or journalists. Mom liked reading books about ordinary, yet interesting people who came from backgrounds different from her own.  She was always looking for the common values that most of us on this planet share. And they always had a good paperback close by. But despite the example they set, I have never been someone who always has a book by the bed, or by my favorite chair, ready to read whenever a moment presents itself. That’s the kind of readers they were.

Don’t get me wrong, though.  I love books. Reading is one of my favorite activities when in the right frame of mind. For me, the urge to read happens all at once. I go through reading phases.  I might find a book that my wife has brought home and I pick it up. If it catches my attention, I read it. If I love it, I’m most likely going to read everything that the author has written. One right after the other. Then I might not pick up another book for months, or years, or ever. 

Sometimes a friend will give me a book that blows my mind in some way. I’ll keep going back to that friend and asking for more recommendations. Or I hear about a book on the radio or from a blog. If it is a topic that captures my attention, then I may go on a reading tear on that subject. People around me probably get sick of hearing about whatever the latest subject is. And it could be anything from quantum theory to Lady Ga-Ga to ZEN AND THE ART OF MOTORCYCLE MAINTENANCE.  I read that Robert Pirsig book about motorcycles and life over and over again. I’m not sure that I ever really comprehended it, but it felt like an important puzzle that I needed to figure out.

Once, my mother suggested that I read Dostoevsky’s CRIME AND PUNISHMENT. It had been her favorite assigned reading in college.  I was mesmerized by that book.  Like ZEN, this is another one that I pick up and read every few years. The appeal of this book is that it makes me feel like I am in the mind of this madman and somehow through that I start to see things from his warped perspective and even begin to understand his actions. I actually feel compassion for this man who, step by brutal step, walks me through the violent murder that he committed. Literature is powerful.

And yet, I can’t call myself a reader. For me to claim to be a reader would be disrespectful of the real readers in this world, like my parents were. Or, like my wife and oldest daughter are. My parents read for entertainment and out of curiosity. But my wife and daughter consume books as if their lives depend upon it. To them, Reading is like eating or breathing. A trip to the library is never about finding a book to read. It is about finding many books to read. They both come back from the library loaded down with giant stacks of books. I’m amazed at the endless stream of books they eagerly anticipate the publication of. And when they get word that a book that is on hold at the library has arrived, it becomes urgent to race to our local branch and bring it (and three or four other books) home so that they can dive right into whatever world the author has created for them.

I’m jealous of their passion for reading. I lament that my parent’s good habits of always having something to read nearby did not rub off on me.  I want to be that kind of person. I try to be that person. And sometimes, I am that person, but only in fits and starts. 

I was most definitely that kind of passionate reader from the moment I cracked the first page and entered the world created by J.K. Rowling in HARRY POTTER AND THE SORCERER’S STONE.  I became that voracious reader that could not wait to read the next in the series. I would stay up all night devouring every word in those impossibly long stories of magic, love, and heroism of the highest sort.

But Rowling set a new bar that made it even harder for another book to captivate me. Sometimes I try to force it.  I will pick a book from our own personal library (I can count at least eight bookshelves scattered around our home, in my head). I begin to read, but about two pages in, I stop. The author does not grab me with his words quickly enough.  This is how I am. Something has to really excite my brain from the get-go if I am going to see it through.  Since my wife is a teacher and an author, I often pick up any book she brings home and give it a try. Occasionally, one will suck me in within a few sentences. THE SKY IS EVERYWHERE, by Jandy Nelson has that kind of magic. Young Adult books often appeal to me. The characters are at such an exciting point in their lives. But, Jandy Nelson’s book is something special.  One page in and I am seeing through the eyes of the young woman who has recently lost someone close to her. I am tasting the blandness of the food she forces herself to chew and swallow. I can hear the absence of laughter and joy that had once filled her home.

I understand that kind of loss.

My parents were good people. I have never heard anyone say a negative word about them. In fact, it is always the opposite. People gush about my Mom and Dad.  Maybe it’s because they never spoke negatively about others. Maybe it is the fact that they were always genuinely interested in whoever was in their company.  And maybe, just maybe, the fact that they knew how to kick back in the recliner and just simply enjoy a good book made them more open to new ideas, more interested in the stories of other people, and just plain happier. Maybe my New Year resolution should be to be more like Mom and Dad. 

Yeah.  I think I’ll give that a shot.