Condensed reading

Summertime reading! Isn’t it a wonderful treat to take an hour or two out of the day and read a novel or two or 10 over the summer months! My Mom was a reader and the nut didn’t fall too far from the tree. Mom encouraged us kids to take advantage of the public library and the bookmobile near our home and the bookseller when we were in downtown Toronto. The trips to the bookseller usually happened after a Saturday trip to St. Lawrence Market and we were encouraged to “fill the cardboard box” with our choices. Of course, with so many siblings, there was a limit on the amount to be spent per book and the carton didn’t seem as big when all of us were trying to fill it with our favourites. According to my Mom, comic books didn’t count as “books” and Mom would insist they would only be tolerated during vacation stays at the cottage or while on camping trips. We made a special trip to the bookseller for our summer travelling books and a stack of comics.

At home, our living room bookshelves were lined with Mom’s books. There were times during any given week, when I’d read and re-read my library books with several days until the next visit to the library or the bookmobile and have done the same with books from the “carton,” I found I’d have no choice but to read Mom’s books. Mostly I had no idea what the author was trying to say, but the ebb and flow of the text was addictive. I, quite literally, would read anything from Mom’s shelves. Sometime in the late 1950s Mom started reading Reader’s Digest condensed novels. I’m not sure if she was a subscriber, I figure she picked up her “fill” at the used book store. I know the local library and the bookmobile didn’t have RDC novels. I asked the librarian, once; she informed me there was a place for condensed books” and it wasn’t on the shelves of the public library. Indeed. Mom didn’t seem to care. Condensed books she had time for and wasn’t the kind of person to get into the “book club” mode, but I loved it when she asked me what I thought of what I’d just read. Mom never criticized or pooh-poohed what I thought and what I thought seemed to make her day.

With a large family to manage and oodles of visiting family and others, my Mom didn’t have a lot of quiet time. She often said if she got a moment to herself she just wanted a quick read without one of us asking for something. I noticed the selection of Reader’s Digest condensed books gradually squeezed out her collection of the “real” literature and oh my, the characters I met on the pages of those Reader’s Digest condensed books. Mrs. ’Arris, who went to Paris and had adventures with the language, the customs and the food. Gradually, I added an Ugly American to my life, along with the Preacher’s Kids and, eventually, Seidman and his Son. Instead of reading one novel each day, Reader’s Digest made it possible for me to whip through four or more. By the time I was old enough to find novels on my required reading list in school, I had already spent “condensed” quality time with the subtle nuances of character development. When I was in grade 10, I wasn’t blindsided by the dusty, dreary Cry the Beloved Country, I’d already read the “condensed book” when I was 11 or 12 and while I was really sure I understood what apartheid meant, I felt something. When To Kill a Mockingbird was slapped on our desks, in grade 10, I’d already done that tour of duty. Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t always sure I understood everything I read during my long relationship with RDC books. I didn’t. As a matter of fact, the deeper meaning of To Kill a Mockingbird literally flew over my head when I was a teenager. I dreaded the ubiquitous, “What do you think the author was trying to say?” It wasn’t until I was working for an American company in the sixties I finally “got” racial discrimination. And, it wasn’t until this summer I bought the upteenth edition of To Kill a Mockingbird, and re-read it, that I finally felt the punch of Harper Lee’s brilliance.

I have a special place in life for Mom’s condensed books and a great appreciation for public libraries (where the full version of those novels is always on the shelves waiting to spend some time with me) and for booksellers. Mostly I love the quiet time I have, now, to spend time with characters from my condensed past. Welcome to my bookshelves, Samuel and Liza Hamilton and Miss Dove and John Singer.

theresa@wellingtontimes.ca