Constant companion

I could get very flowery and poetic about how reading has shaped my life, but I won't. There is no way to deny the profound effect books have had on me though. As an only child, I have found books to be the siblings I didn't have. I have moved more times than I care to count, but there are a steady few books that always come with me, and many more that I miss once I've arrived. (A few of them - the constant friends - are Still Life With Woodpecker by Tom Robbins, The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz, Feet of Clay by Terry Pratchett, and Why Cats Paint by Heather Busch and Burton Silver).

I wish that I had known more about historical novels when I was in school because I have learned more about history from well-written historical novels than I ever did in school. Some good ones were Burr by Gore Vidal, Forever by Pete Hamill, Roots by Alex Haley, Hawaii and The Source by James Michener, The Other Boleyn Girl by Phillippa Gregory, even Mirror Mirror by Gregory Maguire, which was not technically a historical novel but coupled with The Family by Mario Puzo it gave me an understanding of the time period and influence of the Borgias that I would never otherwise have known. It also made my trip to Rome much more interesting.

I don't even know how to express how rich my life has been because of books, how dear they still are, how they connect me to other people (both within and without the books themselves!), and how much more three-dimensional of a person I am due to the myriad of perspectives I have experienced through them all of them, from the trashiest and emptiest to the most complex and tortuous. When I meet people who say "I don't read", I just don't know what to say. I don't know how to bridge that gap, because books are so much a part of me that I can't really express myself without using them as reference points. Anyway, that is what reading means to me: my friend, my escape, my grail, my triumph, my solace, the frosting and the cake at the same time.