Girlhood and Books

When I asked my father why I'm not very good at basketball (or really at any of the sports [I participate in every sporting activity slowly and deliberately rather than with any great natural instinct or coordination (you should see me bowl)]), he would always say, "because you spent your childhood indoors, reading a book" (most likely to his chagrin, at least partially).

And I do remember those times. I remember my mother taking a picture of my sister and I stretched out on opposite sides of the same couch, engrossed in books. I asked her why she took a picture of us just then and she said it was since that was all we'd spent our summer doing.

And I remember keeping a novel of some sort or another (mostly of really crappy quality because I just didn't know what was good) on the edge of my desk at school, looking for any opportunity to open it. Or for the bus ride home.

This article on girls reading captures something really wonderful about the way in which I read as a child, something that for me unfortunately, as for the article's author, has changed. I have stacks and stacks of things I haven't gotten to. Plus you just have more remove--you're more tangled up in the rest of life than you are as a child. (Pointed out by Maggie Perry, who has the best sensibilities of any woman I've ever met. Plus, her book recommendations are stellar.)