Once upon a time...

I read. I read novels. I read the Bible. I read self-help books. When I look at magazines, I actually read the articles. I read the newspaper. I read blogs from people I know. I read blogs from people I don't know. I read through my own blogs. I'll see a video on YouTube that makes a strong statement and I'll read through pages of comments. I find forums about things I like (photography, song writing, etc.) and I'll read through countless threads and replies. When I get a new electronic device I read the entire owners manual. I'm a reader.

I wasn't always a reader, though. There was a time when I was a normal teenager. But, that all changed the winter of 1997. I was eighteen. I had a full time job. I was finished with school. I would never need to pick up another book again. I was completely content with the possibility of onset illiteracy brought on by a lack of practice.

Then it happened. My friend, Shawn, moved back from Fairbanks, Alaska to go to school at SMSU (or MSU as this new generation will come to know it as). The two of us moved into this cool little two-bedroom bungalow on Cherry Street built in the 1920's. I was thrilled to be back in Springfield after seven years of Ozark residency. But, here lies the cause of the beginning of my love for all things written. I was a music-loving, song/artist/album knowledge snob, conversationalist. Shawn was a reader. Sure, Shawn, had a natural ability to find underground great music. And he could carry on a conversation about music with the best of them. But, he did something that none of my other friends would do. He would pick up a book and get lost in it.

My only problem with this was that when we didn't have any guests over he would get lost in a book and I would get bored. I'd attempt to talk to him about something and he would just look at me with this look. All you readers know this look. Without words it says, "Can't you see that I'm trying to read here? I don't want to talk to you!" Because all of our friends were still in Ozark, the trip to our house required a better reason that just the usual hang out. It required promise of a party. But, despite what practically every teenage movie of the eighties and nineties tells us, you can't party all the time.

Eventually, in frustration and extreme boredom, on my day off, and after having received one of these looks from Shawn, I threw up my hands and gave in. I asked him if he wanted to go to the bookstore. No reader can turn this request down and so we went. I bought every type of book that I thought I might like along with some other suggestions from Shawn. I walked out of the store with a brown paper grocery bag FULL of paperbacks. I started with H.G. Wells, made my way through the classic "must-reads", read all of the Left Behind series, and finally fell into a determination to read everything from Jeffery Deaver and Dean Koontz. The only problem with that is that there is a such a backlog of novels from each of these authors that I've spent the last several years attempting to tackle this goal. I'm about 3/4 of the way done, though.

Anyway, I figured that I would start a series of blogs randomly thrown in amongst the mix called Book Report. I'll start it tomorrow with the book that I am currently reading: Captivating by John and Stasi Eldridge.

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