Archive for the 'Reading' Category

Memories of childhood reading

Always a reader

I have always been a reader. My earliest memories are of always having a book or two to read. The example was first encouraged by my parents. My father regularly read the local paper called the Murray Pioneer which was published weekly in the nearby town of Renmark, South Australia. As far as I know, this paper is still publishing over 60 years later.

My earliest writing

I can also remember Dad reading the weekly paper simply called The Chronicle. This was primarily aimed at farmers like my father and was full of useful articles for those living on the land. As far as I can determine, this publication ceased in 1954. I think that I read parts of this paper, mainly for the cartoons. Dad also read parts of the weekly paper called The Sunday Mail. I still enjoy reading this paper which is based mainly on South Australian news. Some of my earliest writing was published in the children’s pages of The Sunday Mail.

My mother’s example

My mother also set an example to me regarding reading. Her main interests were in reading various women’s magazines such as the Australian Women’s Weekly. This is still being published, though now it is issued once a month. She also read New Idea, a similar publication aimed at women. As a young writer, I remember the thrill of having some letters published in these periodicals. I was even paid for my letters, a whopping five shillings (50 cents) which was a lot in the 1950s.

In my blood

I guess that writing was in my blood at an early age. Somehow, I was sidetracked into teaching for 35 years, though that brought a great deal of satisfaction.

Childhood books

As a child, I always remember having books in my home. I would always ask for books for Christmas and my birthday. There was always a book prize from the local Sunday School Christmas breakup and I eagerly looked forward to receiving one for good attendance. Any new book was devoured in a matter of hours. I remember reading many Enid Blyton books – Famous Five and Secret Seven among many others. I probably read many of the W.E. Johns’ Biggles series which were popular at the time.

School Libraries

The primary (elementary) school I attended was about a ten-minute walk from where I lived on the family farm. Taplan Primary School never had more than about 30 students and I have very pleasant memories of my school days there. A good proportion of the students were also my cousins. This one-teacher school had a library corner with only several hundred books. This was naturally a magnet for me and I read many of the titles in this small library – though I can’t recall being able to borrow the books to take home. I do remember having a small, compact Collins Gem Dictionary which I took to school every day and home again in the afternoon. I would frequently consult this little book, constantly learning new words.

High School Library

I think that it was 1961 when I started at Loxton High School for my secondary education. Here is where I really began to read voraciously. The school had a large room full of books and I was able to borrow them to take home. Many of these books were devoured on my 40-minute bus trip to and from school. It was here that I discovered the delights of fantasy, especially science fiction.

Readers; please leave some comments about your earliest childhood reading influences and habits.

Good reading and writing,

Trevor

What I have been reading

Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine - Gail Honeyman

Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman.

I took a chance on this popular book and I am so pleased that I did.

Once you get through the first few pages, it is obvious that Eleanor is not completely fine. From a very protected and regimented routine, she learns to accept changes to her life, many of them imposed upon her. This adversely affects her with extreme challenges to every aspect of her rather sheltered life.

Eleanor’s social life is largely non-existent. Her only social contacts are at work in the accounts department of a large graphic design company. She keeps very much to herself and rarely has contact with anyone on weekends, except while shopping. Her solitary weekends are spent alone with two large bottles of vodka to numb the pain of her self imposed social isolation, as well as the memories of a painful childhood.

When she has problems with her work computer she meets the company IT specialist Raymond. He is her complete opposite. She finds his eating habits repulsive, his dress sense totally lacking and his general lifestyle choices unfathomable. In a random act of care, they join forces to help elderly Sammy during a medical episode. From that point on their relationship blossoms into a close friendship.

Eleanor becomes infatuated with a musician who becomes the catalyst for her to undertake a complete makeover in her appearance. When a carefully planned encounter with the “man of her dreams” goes terribly wrong, Eleanor’s world crumbles to ruins around her. She tries to erase the pain through excessive drinking of vodka until Raymond comes to her rescue. At his insistence, she seeks medical help.

Through many sessions with a compassionate and understanding psychologist Maria Temple, Eleanor slowly confronts her horrific childhood memories. The focus of these sessions eventually helps Eleanor to distance herself from her cruel and obsessive “Mummy”.

Her extremely quirky nature reminded me so many times of Don Tillman (The Rosie Project). I very much enjoyed this novel and the twist at the end caught me by surprise.

Brilliantly written.

Highly recommended. I give it five stars.

The importance of young writers

The future of writing

I do not think that I would get many arguments when I say that the future of writing is in the hands of young writers. I probably could go on to say that the future of books is also in the hands of our younger writers. A future without writers is bleak indeed, but a future without readers is something I cannot imagine. It is a bleak pessimist who states that writing and reading are doomed.

My Hope

In the spheres of reading and writing, I am a romantic optimist. I see an unbelievable future for the art and craft of writing, and a beautiful rosy prospect for the joys of reading. How and what stories writers weave with their words may change – just look at how the internet, social media, blogging and eBooks have changed how and what people write, so too reading may change just as dramatically. We can see this already in the popularity of audiobooks and podcasts.

Very young writers 

I spent all of my teaching career of 35 years encouraging young students aged between six and twelve to read and to write. I don’t think any of them have devoted their lives to writing, but many of them have pursued great careers. Over recent days, I have been reminded again of the importance of reading and writing to very young students. I have been staying for a little while with my son and his family. My granddaughter, age 7, has always been a voracious reader.

The importance of reading

I have very fond memories of reading to my children when they were very little with my daughter on one knee and my son on the other. It was a nightly routine and a love of reading has stayed with both of them throughout their lives. I also have fond memories of reading to my grandchildren in a similar way whenever staying with them. (We live 1300km apart, unfortunately.) The habit of reading to the children every night – and sometimes during the day, too, has also been a hallmark of my grandchildren’s upbringing. Both are very competent readers with excellent comprehension and an amazing vocabulary to match. This competence flows naturally over into their writing.

The importance of writing

While on my current visit to stay with family I have been once again impressed by my granddaughter’s writing ability. She has an extremely active imagination and a great command of language and how it works. even at age 7 (nearly 8), she can write a very imaginative story with ease, the words flowing quickly and seemingly effortlessly. This has to be as a result of countless hours of reading and being read to by her parents.

Planning and structure in writing

One aspect of the writing I have seen her produce is that she plans her stories out in detail, following a structure which has been carefully taught by her teachers. She has a great sense of story, the structure of a story, and how characters, emotions, settings, voice, speech patterns and the like are so important in telling a great narrative. I am so grateful that she has had several great teachers in her life so far. May this continue.

Good reading. Good writing.

Trevor

On hearing about Stephen King’s 70th Birthday

Just a few thoughts today about Stephen King, Writing, Reading and Life.

It happens to be the great writer’s 70th birthday. I, too, will also be 70 in a few weeks’ time, but the comparison ends there.

I just wrote that he is a ‘great’ writer. Many people would undoubtedly agree with that statement, but I don’t agree – or disagree – with that assessment. I can only go on what other people have said and written. This is because I have only ever heard or read about his written works. I cannot recall ever having read any of his stories, so I really cannot pass any kind of judgement.

Not a fan

I should also say that I am not about to race out and buy any of his books.

There are two reasons for this:

  • I don’t particularly enjoy reading the kinds of books that he writes, so I am not a fan.
  • I have far too many unread books on my bookshelves and on my eReader to justify buying any more. At this stage.

I am sure that he is a fine writer. His popularity and his impressive number of major awards testify to this fact. He has the track record to show that he is a highly regarded writer by many people. I have no problem with that. But now I must come clean with a confession: I have actually bought one of his books and it has sat unopened, unread and unloved on my bookshelf for more than 4 years now. I speak of his book On Writing: A Memoir of the CraftI bought it with the view of studying the writing craft as seen by one of the greats.

And so I will. Soon, I hope.

Great Stephen King Quotes

Today I came across a list of 70 great Stephen King Quotes on his 70th Birthday. This is a great list of wonderful quotes about reading, writing, life and a whole range of topics. While I don’t particularly like some of them, many of them are great, and some of them are very well known, like this one:

“If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot.”—On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

I agree wholeheartedly. These two things I have been trying to do over the last 13 years since I retired from being a classroom teacher. All through my life, I have been an avid reader, but much of that reading was classroom based. I would voraciously read children’s books, always searching for the next great book to share with my students. For eight of my 35 years of teaching I was a teacher-librarian, so books have always been foremost in my professional life.

Me – the writer

All through my teaching career, I struggled to find the time to write. While I always regarded myself as a writer, my writing was largely confined to weekends and school holiday periods. Since retiring, however, I have given myself permission to write every day, and during some periods have considered myself to be a full-time writer. Life has a habit of getting in the way, and there have also been lean writing times – like the last few months caring for my ill wife. (She is improving – thanks for being concerned.) During these years of my second career, I have had some publication success, and I have written nearly three million words, many of them published on my various blog sites. ( Trevor’s Birding and Trevor’s Travels.)

Me – the reader

Now that I have the time, and the freedom, to read whatever I want to, I am finding so many great writers and books to explore. My family is convinced that I will die with a very high pile of unread books alongside my bed. This is probably true – and they will find many unread books on my eReader as well. Still, I love the freedom of reading whatever I want to read, and exploring the works of authors and genres I didn’t have time to read in earlier years.

So – Happy Birthday Stephen King.

Good reading and good writing to you all.

Trevor

Review: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Review: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Back in April I wrote about the fact that I had finally relented and procured an eReader. It was interesting adapting to a new form of technology. It was also quite a different reading experience. I found it very easy to use and quickly downloaded several books to read.

I also included my wife in this wonderful new addition to our reading regime. I was quite surprised how easily she also took to it. In fact, during the first few weeks we had to share the reader. She usually heads off to bed before me and reads for 20 – 30 minutes, and then when I arrive in bed it is lying there waiting for me. So far, we have not argued over its use at all. Not yet.

But I digress.

Well, not so much of a digression but more of an introduction to the review I want to do. The first book I bought and read on my eReader was The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. When I mentioned this on Facebook many of my friends said how enjoyable this book was, as well as being totally gripping in its exciting subject matter.

I have to disagree.

Yes – I was totally absorbed by the storyline. At times I had trouble putting the reader down. I even took it out in the back yard to read – when the grandchildren allowed me this luxury. We were staying with my son and family in Sydney at the time. The utter fascination with the characters and the events in this novel had me spellbound, and about half way through the book, this began to bother me, and towards the end it concerned me greatly.

While I concede that this is a brilliantly written book – it has the reader in its grip right from the beginning – it was the subject matter which rang alarm bells in my conscience. I found the sadistic subject matter towards the end of the novel to be quite repulsive; I guess that was what the author was trying to achieve. I also found that many of the characters had no moral compasses at all. Instead, they displayed very strong ‘immoral compasses.’

Conclusion:

Certainly it is a very well written novel – no disputing that. I just found that this type of novel is not for me – especially when I have so many other books waiting to be read.

And I have resolved not to read the sequels in this series. Good thing I didn’t buy them.

Good reading.

Good writing.

Trevor