Read, Write, Re-Read

I have heard libraries and booksellers are busier than they’ve ever been since the Pandemic hit. That’s got to be a good thing, right? I think it must be. When all of the isolating and locking down began, I was at a loss about what I could do to fill the days. Reading has helped. The thing is, from the moment I learned to read I’ve been a lover of books. I grew up in a semi-rural community located a few kilometres from the Town of Weston. Technically, Weston was part of Metropolitan Toronto. In the heart of Weston was the Public Library. It was situated less than a block from the elementary school I attended. Once every week or so, each class would march down to the library. It was my favourite day, aside from “film strip day” and the day the bookmobile showed up at the public school yard. All of the St. John’s students had cardboard library cards with our names typed on them. I guarded mine because it was a key to adventures and travel, and it was all mine. On library day, my card would have been in my navy blue tunic pocket. Every few minutes I’d pat that pocket to make sure my card was safe. One library day, thechildren’s librarian, whose name I have long forgotten, quietly told me “When you’ve read every book in the Children’s Department I will give you a new, adult card and you will be able to go upstairs and select a book from the Adult Department.” A wise woman, she was. She had me pegged for a reader. From that day forward I carefully wrote the title of each book I had read, or at least perused, on a piece workbook of paper. When I thought I’d read them all, I presented her with my list. She asked about the encyclopedias, the Bible stories,The Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew and the books about trucks and farm equipment. I think I told her I’d simply forgotten to put them on the list. She gave me that new card, anyway. That day, Mary Margaret LaCroix and I stopped picking out “baby books” and headed upstairs. I don’t think Mary Margaret read all of the books in the Children’s Department, either. But she was a bit of a goody-goody, so maybe she did. I do know she was surprised to find the grown-up department didn’t have the picture books about ponies and baby farm animals she loved to check-out.

Reading was, and still is, an escape for me. When you’re raised in a household of nine people, sometimes the only escape from the chaos was in a book. Reading was never considered a privilege or a reward in our home. We were expected to read for a while every day. My mother was a firm believer in reading to us before bed, too. Owning books was a treat. As a family, we often went to used book stores, after a trip to the St. Lawrence Market. The only condition my parents posed, with regard to books, was “no comic books”. Over the years, reading has taken me on a lot of great adventures. Since the beginning of the Pandemic I’ve been adding older classics to my reading list—no, not the Hardy Boys or The Bible or Nancy Drew. And, for the record, as a youngster I might have been more Trixie Belden than Nancy Drew, anyway. Currently, I’m re-reading The Chrysalids and as I ride through the Badlands and the Fringes, I wonder why it was included in my grade 10 essential reading list. Surely a fourteen-year-old wouldn’t understand the subtleties, politics and nuances of post-nuclear apocalypse or even have a clue about genetic mutations caused by radiation. I’ve read the book twice since my high school days and am on the third reading now. Each time I read it, I get a better understanding of Wyndam’s mind. Although, I have to say, the thing I hated most about literature in high school was the question, “What do you think the author was trying to say?” I’m still not sure I understand what the author was trying to say and, I suppose I never really cared.

The list of my pandemic re-reads is quite lengthy. I try to mix the re-reads with a generous dose of crime fiction, artists’ biographies and catalogues, cookbooks (so many cookbooks), Canadian history and technical stuff. I’m no longer a library visitor, however. I rely upon LOML to pick-out and pick-up books for me. The day libraries moved from stamping the little slip with your library card number was the day I stopped going to the library. It’s not by way of protest, it’s just because I’d often bring the same book home two weeks after I finished reading it because my library number wasn’t written on the little slip of paper in the book pocket.(I have trouble remembering authors and book titles.) I know. I know. I said I’m a re-reader, but I do like to give the repeat a bit of time, sometimes years. As I come to the end of The Chrysalids, I’m still not sure what the author was trying to tell the reader. There are so many messages in his books.

Next on my list? Glad you asked. The second book of the Silo Trilogy – Shift, written by Hugh Howey followed by Brave New World written by Aldous Huxley. Who knows, Nancy Drew could be on deck before the next long weekend hits.