I Read 15 Books!

I got through 15 books this summer. I started at Memorial Day and just finished my last official Summer Read today. I never thought that this was going to happen. I have not read this many books during a year (actually I can't remember reading this many books during the last 3 or 4 years combined) much less during a summer. It was a joy that I found out about all over again.

As a young boy I read all the time, it was about as normal as breathing for me. I didn't have a favorite type of book or genre that I favored, I just liked to read. By the time I entered Junior high and high school I had lost that love of pleasure reading. I didn't have books speak to me the way they had in the past. In fact, even though my degree is in English I didn't enjoy reading the majority of the things I was asked to read. I read them because I had to not because I wanted to.

The same type of burnout happened to me with swimming and water polo. I loved it in my youth but simply cannot stand being in the pool now. I actually will go out of my way to not be in the pool even during the summer. The pool is literally outside my front door and I am glad to say that I have not spent very much time at all in the pool throughout this summer. I do not miss the pool at all, it is nothing like the reading that I have missed all these years.

Some people say that teachers become burnt out during the school year when it comes to reading, it is the work load that keeps them from reading during the school year. I'm not going to fall into that trap this year. I am going to try and read one book a week for the entire school year. The math becomes pretty easy, 1 book a week = 52 books throughout the year. If I really hit my stride I could cover that before the end of this year (I only need to finish 37 more books), but it is not simply the quantity of books that I am looking at.

I still do not fall into any particular category when it comes to what I read. I read a lot of male authors this summer, and covered a range of topics and genres. I used Esquire magazine as a guide (I enjoy the writing in Esquire quite a bit), and started down the path to finding out what reading was all about again. I sat today and read the last 80+ pages of my book, then I picked up my latest copy of Esquire and read it cover to cover while I watched Kylie and her friend Remy out at the pool (I did not go in--in fact I sat in the shade the entire 2 hours).

I understand why some people do not read. They do not have the ability to sit and focus their time and concentrate solely on one thing. They want to get up and go to do something else or they do not have the ability to tune everything else around them out. Krista and Cal can tune everything around them out when they pick up a book. It is both amazing and frustrating because you have to break their concentration in order to make sure that they hear you. I out read Krista this summer (a first for sure) but I'm a distant second to Cal. Cal checks out books that same way my mother does, 15 to 20 at a time, finishing 2 or more a day if he chooses. He leans to sci-fi and fantasy for sure, but he isn't against reading other things as well.

I'm glad that I have unearthed this little gem of reading once again. It has made me a better person because I have sat down to experience the world around me through so many different perspectives and voices. There is something unique about each of the writers yet something that seems to bind them together at the same time. I'm currently out of books and tomorrow is Labor Day so I can't go to the library either. I've got a book on hold and I'm going to check my list to see what's next.