utter randomonium

This week’s BTT is about Encouragement. That is:

How can you encourage a non-reading child to read? What about a teenager? Would you require books to be read in the hopes that they would enjoy them once they got into them, or offer incentives, or just suggest interesting books? If you do offer incentives and suggestions and that doesn’t work, would you then require a certain amount of reading? At what point do you just accept that your child is a non-reader?

I was one of those non-reading children, and once I was into chapter books the few things I did read were only because other people did. My sister, whom I idolized, was a big reader. It was because of her that I ever read any Piers Anthony, D. Manus Pinkwater, Douglas Adams, or Robert Asprin. I read A Little Princess and some unicorn series because my grade school friends were really into them. I always participated in the Summer Reading Program at the local public library (which had the best children’s librarians ever, by the way), but there wasn’t much incentive for me, really, considering the prize at the end was just another book. I remember getting a book in the gift exchange in fourth grade and being just incredibly disappointed, especially since everyone else got toys. The books assigned at school were no help either. I still fall asleep just hearing the names of such standard English Class fare as Johnny Tremain, The Incredible Journey, A Separate Peace, and The Scarlet Letter.

The change came during my freshman year of college. I didn’t own a television, and after a while I became so desperate to read something – anything – that wasn’t a text book that I picked up Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice. I’d liked the movie, so I figured I’d give the book a try. I loved it, and luckily was able to find copies of the next three books in the series at the college library. (Being in the Honors College gave me the unexpected perk of being able to check books out for an entire semester, which came in handy considering how little free time I had for pleasure reading.) After that was the Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan (aside: this is one series I’d want an e-book reader for, since the mass market paperbacks have a tendency to fall apart and anything larger is super heavy), and by then I was hooked. I needed to have a book on me at all times, if only to pick up for a few minutes before class started. These days I have three books going at any one time: my regular book, an audiobook in my car, and a paperback in my gym bag for reading on the exercise bike.

So I guess this is a long-winded way of saying to just let them be. You can’t – and probably shouldn’t – force interests. If they want to read, they’ll get around to it eventually. If not, then not. Pleasure reading isn’t the be-all and end-all of pastimes. I enjoy reading, but I know plenty of perfectly intelligent and well-rounded people who don’t. It’s just one of those things.

Today’s Booking Through Thursday is fairly straightforward:

Which do you prefer? Biographies written about someone? Or Autobiographies written by the actual person (and/or ghost-writer)?

I don’t read many biographies, auto- or otherwise, though my favorites have been primarily memoirs, such as If Chins Could Kill and Cancer Vixen, and of course pretty much anything David Sedaris or Laurie Notaro put out. I’m not sure I’ve ever read a straight-up biography, come to think of it; the closest was probably Silverstein and Me, which wasn’t really so much a life story as it was memories of a good friend in reasonably chronological order. Books about single people have never really interested me.

So I guess that’s my long way of saying that I prefer autobiography. Which is interesting, since before this meme I would have thought I had no preference either way.

So I’ve decided to start taking part, at least occasionally, in another weekly book-related meme, Booking Through Thursday. (And yes, I’m well aware that it’s not Thursday.) This week’s topic is on weeding your book collection. More specifically:

When’s the last time you weeded out your library? Do you regularly keep it pared down to your reading essentials? Or does it blossom into something out of control the minute you turn your back, like a garden after a Spring rain?

Or do you simply not get rid of books? At all?

The fact of the matter is that I don’t need to weed my books. I almost never reread books, and for a lot of years, most of the books I read went straight into my mother’s annual garage sale. These days they all get BookCrossed. The only time I’ve ever done any actual weeding was once when I pulled out all the Dan Brown, Dean Koontz, Robin Cook, and any other generic thrillers I knew it would be no problem to find again someday if I really wanted to read them. And in that case, it was just a matter of reclaiming some shelf space. BookCrossing may be about releasing books, but I’ve sure ended up with a whole lot more than I ever had before joining!

I keep the few favorites that I do like to read again from time to time, but otherwise my personal library consists mainly of to-be-read books. Which is part of the reason why I don’t understand judging someone by the books they own. Most of my books aren’t ones I’ve been able to form an opinion about yet.