Fun With Dick And Jane

I was taught to read with Fun With Dick And Jane. While I didn't particularly enjoy that book, I appreciate that it was an important step on my road to reading.

In the words of Anna Quindlen:

It is like the rubbing of two sticks together to make a fire, the act of reading, an improbably pedestrian task that leads to heat and light. Perhaps this only becomes clear when one watches a child do it. Dulled to the mystery by years of STOP signs, recipes, form letters, package instructions, suddenly it is self-evident that this is a strange and difficult thing, this making symbols into words, into sentences, into sentiments and scenes and a world imagined in the mind’s eye. The children’s author Lois Lowry recalled it once: “I remember the feeling of excitement that I had, the first time that I realized each letter had a sound, and the sounds went together to make words; and the words became sentences, and the sentences became stories.”

Our Layered Earth

I just finished reading Anna Quindlen's book, "How Reading Changed My Life." She has a lot of great things to say about reading...Things that most readers will nod their heads in appreciation of as they read.

Try this one:

Reading became the pathway to the world, a world without geographic boundaries or even the steep risers of time. There was a time machine in our world, but not the contraption of metal and bolts and motors imagined even by a man as imaginative as H. G. Wells. Socrates was wrong: a reader learns what he or she does not know from books, what has passed and yet is forever present through print. The mating rituals of the Trobriand Islanders. The travails of the Donner Party. The beaches at Normandy. The smoke from the stacks at Auschwitz. Experience, emotion, landscape: the world is as layered as the earth, life cumulative with books. The eyewitnesses die; the written word lives forever.

Trust me - as one who recently got back from a Grand Canyon experience (a word which herein means the longest hike of my life) - the earth is very layered. :-)

Duck Hunting

I recently read a new book, titled "What Now?" by Ann Patchett. The book was based on a speech she gave at her old university, and it is quite well-written. She is a journalist, and has interesting things to say about her journey to become a writer. Like this:

I learned the most from sticking with my dream even when all signs told me it was time to let go. I came to understand that fiction writing is like duck hunting. You go to the right place at the right time with the right dog. You get into the water before dawn, wearing protective gear, then you stand behind some reeds and wait for the story to present itself. This is not to say you are passive. You choose the place and the day. You pick the gun and the dog. You have the desire to blow the duck apart for reasons that are entirely your own. But you have to be willing to accept not what you wanted to have happen, but what happens. You have to write the story you find in the circumstances you’ve created, because more often than not the ducks don’t show up. The hunters in the next blind begin to argue, and you realize they’re in love. You see a snake swimming in your direction. Your dog begins to shiver and whine, and you start to think about this gun that belonged to your father. By the time you get out of the marsh you will have written a novel so devoid of ducks it will shock you.

Passing Time in New Zealand

More from the Queen about the purpose of books:

When Sir Kevin tries to understand the Queen's new love of reading:

'I can understand,' he said. 'Your Majesty's need to pass the time.'

'Pass the time?' said the Queen. 'Books are not about passing the time. They're about other lives. Other worlds. Far from wanting time to pass, Sir Kevin, one just wishes one had more of it. If one wanted to pass the time one could go to New Zealand.'

I agree with the Queen. There is never enough time for all the reading I want to do.

Though I'd love to visit New Zealand and pass the time there.
(And, of course, I'd take a book.)

Defined By The Queen

‘Yes,’ said the Queen. ‘We would make a good team. Ah, well. The road not travelled. Who’s that?’

‘Who, ma’am?’

‘The road not travelled. Look it up.’

Norman looked it up in the Dictionary of Quotations to find that it was Robert Frost.

‘I know the word for you,’ said the Queen.

‘Ma’am?’

‘You run errands, you change my library books, you look up awkward words in the dictionary and find me the quotations. Do you know what you are?’

‘I used to be a skivvy, ma’am.’

‘Well, you’re not a skivvy now. You’re my amanuensis.’

Norman looked it up in the dictionary the Queen now kept always on her desk. ‘One who writes from dictation; copies manuscripts. A literary assistant.’

I've discovered part of the time I am an amanuensis. Who knew?

Making Time - Like The Queen

More words of wisdom from the Queen:

‘Do you read, Summers?’ she said to the chauffeur en route for Northampton.

‘Read, ma’am?’

‘Books?’

‘When I get the chance, ma’am. I never seem to find the time.’

‘That’s what a lot of people say. One must make the time. Take this morning. You’re going to be sitting outside the town hall waiting for me. You could read then.’

Seems she knows about stealing.

Reading With The Queen

I just finished reading a fun novella. It was The Uncommon Reader, A Novella, by Alan Bennett. I've never read anything by him before, but apparently he's well known in Great Britain. This book is a fun read, with many parts that made me smile/laugh/grimace I'll share with you.

When the Queen had just picked up her second book from the mobile library:

“The Pursuit of Love” turned out to be a fortunate choice and in its way a momentous one. Had Her Majesty gone for another duff read, an early George Eliot, say, or a late Henry James, novice reader that she was she might have been put off reading for good and there would be no story to tell. Books, she would have thought, were work.

And a bit later, as the household began to notice her reading....

As it was, with this one she soon became engrossed, and passing her bedroom that night clutching his hot-water bottle, the duke heard her laugh out loud. He put his head round the door. “All right, old girl?”

‘Of course. I’m reading.’

‘Again?’ And off he went, shaking his head.

This novella was very entertaining. It was interesting to see inside the life of royalty, and see how reading fits/doesn't fit with the duties of being a royal.

Check it out.