What We Read (A Galactic Journey), Part One

Wintertime more than any other season is when we gobble up books This is not to suggest you cannot binge read during any season of the year. It's just that all that tempting text so alluringly in your face, in the bookstores, on a nearby shelf or even somewhere in a bin is usually a hare's breath away, as you hunt for something to read. When the big chill sets in, it's a warm, indoor elixir against the freezing, cold outside.

An earlier post of Feb. 26, 2016 talked about why we read- (click 2016 left, February, find "It's All Leigh Hunt's . . ."). However, what is the what of all this reading?

Previously I described a personal, lifelong reading addiction that had me grappling with the habit since early childhood. Weekly trips to the library a mile or so down the road. Balancing a small though quite heavy tower of kiddie lit in my little arms by having taken full advantage of the library's six-book checkout rule; lugging it all back to our modest, third floor walk  up.

The childhood booty always included more than just a few fairy tales and myths, addictive reads more often than not comprising the whole lot! I also mentioned in that post how as a pre-adolescent I moved on to Hollywood style romantic "adventures"-  the pirates of Robert Louis Stevenson, and eventually the swashbuckling, sexy heroes of Rafael Sabatini (can you say that name aloud and not love it?!?). 

Eventually, I was able to complete the entire ruination of a young life by majoring in stories, wallowing in the gorgeousness of Coleridge, Keats, Shelley, Byron, Leigh Hunt, the ramblings of Rousseau and eventually our own transcendental storytellers from right here in the colony. You want a cozy evening? Try Hawthorne's The House of Seven Gables. Got the travel bug but don't wanna or perhaps can't leave your home and hearth at the moment? The Marble Faun will do the trick!

Along the way I especially admired the poetry of an earlier, "pre-Romantic" from  the mother country, Thomas Gray, who warned so lyrically in his famous "Elegy in a Country Churchyard: The paths of glory lead but to the grave. . . a  lilting if dire admonition about values which led me to think, why not major in books? Given that dim if metaphorical scenario, what did I have to lose???

Most of us know, or think we know, why we read. Feel free to reread- or not-  the earlier post about why we read   (Feb. 26, 2016 "It Was All Leigh Hunt's Fault. . ." ). But reread or not, as they are fond of saying  on the west coast (& usually for some totally inexplicable reason), "it's all good. . . ."  For now though, it's all about what we read.

(Part Two Next Week: The Plots. . . .)
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