Focus on Reading - Week 27 - Who Has Influenced Your Reading

[Booknblues]

Who has most influenced your reading?
How did they influence you?

[KateNZ]

My mother - she taught me to read when I was 3, and made reading a completely normal part of life, with regular library trips as well as our own books at home. We still share books and introduce one another to new series and authors, though we more frequently read different things these days. But books are part of the language of love that we share

[Robin P]

My mother was a great reader and suggested books and authors to me when I was outgrowing children's books. She read a LOT of mysteries, which I didn't get into till later. She died over 20 years ago, and since then I have gotten into so many books and authors I would have liked to share with her.

In school and college, we read the typical classics, therefore lots of white male authors. In the '90's, I joined a book club at a local women's bookstore. It was a wonderful group (still going with some of the original members, but I moved away in 2002). That group introduced me to Gloria Naylor, Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, Barbara Kingsolver, Isabel Allende, and Gail Godwin among others.

More recently, GR groups and friends have regularly alerted me to books I might have missed otherwise.

[Karin]

Three main ones during my birth to university years:

my parents when I was growing up. We didn't have a real library (a tiny thing) so much of what I read was from their shelves.

Also, my good childhood friend KB the first (I had another close friend who was KB until marriage but met her later) was the one to introduce me to hard core scifi when we were 10.

[Amy]

Easy - you guys!

[Joanne]

I am going to have to say it had to be one of my grade school teachers. No one in my family read anything but the newspapers. I fell in love with books very young, and never stopped. I always asked for books for holidays and birthdays.

[Joy D]

My high school English teacher. We had to pick 3 classics from a list she had complied of English authors of the 1800s. I ended up reading the entire list! (The authors included Dickens, Hardy, Thackeray, Austen, Shelley, Bronte, Eliot, etc, and then we started on authors from other countries. And she discussed them all with me after classes. What a wonderful teacher! I have fond memories of her. My mom read to me when I was a child, but I am the only reader in my immediate family.

[LibraryCin]

Amy wrote: "Easy - you guys!"

That's what I was going to say - PBT!

[Tracy]

I was reading at three. My family- parents, grandparents, cousins, and my Crazy Aunt Marie provided me with lots of material for my addiction.

My senior year of high school AP lit teacher was also a big influence. I ran into him years later and got the opportunity to thank him. So he recommended Russian authors. He’d been retired for years and was still ‘teaching’ by sharing his love of reading. He passed away last year- a great person who will be missed.

[Theresa]

Let's see...there have been many, on reflection.

My parents - mom read childrens books to us from time we were born, and once we started reading, we read to my father when he would be resting before supper and the evening milking (dairy farmer). She also found a mail order source for Dr. Seuss and Happy Hollisters series - 2 books a month arrived like clock work. They also read Readers Digest Condensed Books and so did we. Mom mostly read non-fiction, when she had time to read, books about antiques, early american collectibles, refinishing and restoring furniture, and the Kennedys. Dad really showed he was a reader only after he retired from being a dairy farmer and then he was reading whatever he found lying around the house or at yard sales. He is the only person I know who has read The Last Days of Pompeii.

My brother Ed - 10 years older, he gave me 3 Nancy Drews when I was 10. The rest is history...mysteries were my first and enduring genre passion. Interestingly, he is not a book reader, more journals, news, magazines.

Barnard College - I grew up in a small rural community with no bookstores and very limited public and school libraries. Barnard introduced me through its affiliation with Columbia University to the vast world of college and university libraries. Then there were the nearby academic bookstores...not just a rack of paperbacks in the 5&Dime and the grocery store. I was a French studies major and the French Department offered Marguerite Duras, Sartre, Camus, Gide, Proust - a foreign world! Lastly was my friend freshman year who introduced me to steamy bodice rippers - remember Kathleen E. Woodiwiss?

Many friends but especially my friend Ellen. We met at the Si & Gar 1982 reunion concert during the long hours we staked out our spots for ourselves and our friends in Central Park. We were both reading mysteries and it led to a lifelong discussion and sharing of books. It is Ellen that challenged me to first do the Popsugar Challenge in 2016, and persuaded me to check out Feminerdy Book Club. Both have pushed me out of my ruts and to read the eclectic TBR Towers I amassed over 30 years.

Popsugar led me to GR and to PBT and thus to all of you!

Feminerdy's awesome core group of women have influenced me to read 2 genres I never was drawn to in any significant way.

I have been reading blessed. I also know I have paid it forward to my younger sisters, so many friends and even clients, and their kids and grandkids.