I hear some of you like to hear personal things about your favorite authors. I have a pretty big space bubble around my personal life, but I thought maybe you’d like to hear about my reading experience. After all, I have been recommending books to you, as well as writing books FOR you.
I’ve been reading (fluently) since I was four years old. Yes, really. My mom says I was reading at 7th-grade level before I even hit kindergarten age. Since I am not one of those people whose memories go back to toddler-hood, I literally can’t remember I time I couldn’t read. I’m pretty sure it’s had an impact on my view of the world. 😉
I started reading “big-people” books very quickly, and by the time I was eight, I was reading Lord of the Rings. No, I didn’t understand all of it; I was only eight! But I read it about once a quarter every year for many years, then dropped to twice a year, then annually. When my sister dropped her book and lost her page, she called me on the phone. “Quick, tell me what page I’m on!” “What just happened in the story?… Okay, here’s your page.” No, I didn’t have it memorized. Yes, that’s about how long it took me to find it.
Junior high was the first time I attended school (lousy timing!), and people started asking me how many books I read a year. Well, I don’t know! The library only lets me check out ten at a time, and I go every week. But I read books from home, too… So I started tracking. For three years, I wrote down every book I read that had at least 90 pages and wasn’t a textbook. Back then, there was no electronic way to do this (not much internet, folks, and the school computers could put their entire hard-drive on a single floppy drive!), so I did it all by hand. Decades later, I typed it all up so I could analyze it. Yep, I’m a nerd.
Three years. An average of 620 books/year. Lowest year was about 430, highest was a bit over 800. Yes, I realize that’s almost two a day. No, most of them did not have 90 pages; most of them had several hundred pages. Yes, that included some repeats, but most of them were new. You can also assume I read that many books every year until I had kids. (Children require attention, go figure, so I dropped down to only 300 or 400 books for a while.) Even now that I’m writing, I still manage to read over 200 books. Guys, that’s a LOT of books.
No, I don’t read sixteen hours a day. When I was seven or eight, I asked my mom what speed reading was. She gave me the 30-second explanation (or less), and I promptly forgot about it. I apparently started using some of the techniques, though, because my reading speed kept going up until it hit borderline-speed-reading. Not real speed-reading, just borderline. My family thinks it’s amusing to watch my eyes when I read. When they’re really bored, they’ll add pinball-game sound effects. They’re not as funny as they think they are.
By now, you might think I’m bragging. I’m not. I’m just pointing out that I have a lot of experience in the field. 😉 By now, I’m pretty good at picking out fun books. My tastes might not match your own, but if they do, then you’re probably fairly safe taking recommendations from me. Handy, isn’t it? Go ahead, search my posts for all the different lists… I’ll wait for you here. 🙂
As for writing, being a good reader doesn’t necessarily make one a good writer, but it certainly helps! I hope you decide my books are good enough to make your list of recommendations.
Happy reading,
M. C. Lee
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