Are you an avid reader?
I am. Reading is one of the greatest pleasures in my life.
Explore any reader's home,
and you will spot signs that an avid reader lives there.
Walk through my home and you will invariably see
a big coffee table piled with books and magazines,
a bedside nightstand crowded with books,
a bathroom floor stocked with magazines,
and multiple bookcases overflowing with books.
Some of my earliest memories are of my mother reading to me at bedtime.
I would snuggle under the covers in my lamplit bedroom,
and Mom would sit on the edge of my bed and open a book
to magical worlds which filled my imagination and hers,
worlds wildly different from our staid Charlottetown apartment
at the corner of Fitzroy and Edward:
Heidi and Peter roaming over high meadows in Switzerland,
fantastical whales, elephants, and kangaroos coming to be,
and chimneysweep Tom transforming into a water-baby.
Those early books awakened my young mind
to travel, Earth history, and evolution.
My Grandmother MacBeath's Apartment Building and Home
at the Corner of Fitzroy and Edward
at the Corner of Fitzroy and Edward
(We lived in the two-story apartment with the red and white door in the mid-1950s.)
Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Canada
But before those books there were others,
wonderful picture books, nursery rhymes, and fairy tales;
and best of all Bambi!
Many young children have books they beg a parent
to read over and over again. That book for me wasBambi,
and I distinctly remember my mother groaning one evening
as she reached for it and opened its inviting pages again.
I loved Bambi and his forest friends,
Thumper the rabbit and Flower the skunk.
Sometimes I feel like I was born reading.
I don't remember a time that I couldn't read.
The first book I distinctly recall reading was ~
Can you guess which one? ~
Bambi, of course!
One winter evening the wind was keening about the eaves,
and my mother was, yet again, turning the pages of Bambi,
in the warm shelter of my dimly lit bedroom.
She and I were reading it aloud together.
I was soon to be four and very excited at the prospect.
Almost Four
Roy and Me
Roy and Me
Circa late 1953
Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Canada
Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Canada
© M. Louise (MacBeath) Barbour/Fundy Blue
All Rights Reserved
Suddenly my mother stopped and said,
"Why Weesie, I bet you could read this book to me!"
"I can!" I replied with the assurance of a girl almost four.
"I know every word."
"I know you've memorized Bambi, but memorization is different from reading.
When you read you know each of the words on the page."
"I know, Mom! I can read the words."
"Let's see," she replied.
She turned to a page in the book and pointed to a word.
"Bambi," I read. "Give me a hard one, Mom."
She paged through the book randomly and pointed at a variety of words.
"The, antlers, thicket, grass, shyness... ."
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"Good for you, Weesie!
You can read the words.
Now start at the beginning
and read Bambi to me."
I've been avidly reading ever since.
Bambi Walt Disney 1949
A Big Golden Book
Vintage Childrens Story
Golden Press
My mother successfully passed on her love of reading to her five children,
and my brother, sisters, and I have passed that same love on to our next generation.
Currently my mother's only great grandchild Ella is experiencing the joy of being read to.
Reading magazines in the bathroom?
My father is responsible for that particular reading behavior of mine.
The bathroom was the one place he could find a little solitude
in our crowded MacBeath home.
My father greatly influenced my reading as I grew,
mostly by his example of reading voraciously,
his driving me to dictionaries to hunt down the meanings of words,
and his sharing of snippets of news or funnies from his daily newspapers.
I literally cannot get through a day without reading.
I must read.
Before I've finished one book,
I've got the next one lined up to go.
I'm grateful to both of my parents for encouraging my reading addiction,
but it's those treasured hours cuddled up with my mother
which set me on a lifelong journey of devouring books.
My Mother Reading in a Sunny Spot
Acadia University, Nova Scotia, Canada
Circa 1947
© M. Louise (MacBeath) Barbour/Fundy Blue
All Rights Reserved
All Rights Reserved
Right now I'm flying through Fear: Trump in the White House
by Bob Woodward, a book my brother gave me for Christmas.
A tease and an instigator, Roy delights in engaging with me on Trump.
Queued up is Abaddon's Gate by James S. A. Corey,
the third volume in The Expanse series,
a fabulous sci fi ride into humanity's future.
What are you reading?
I'd love to hear.
Happy reading in the new year!
My Father and His Roommate Reading
I used to sneak his goosenecked lamp under my covers to read
(when I was supposed to be sleeping)!
Acadia University, Nova Scotia, Canada
Circa 1947
© M. Louise (MacBeath) Barbour/Fundy Blue
All Rights Reserved
All Rights Reserved
Here's my list of books read in 2018:
1. The Great Halifax Explosion by John U. Bacon
2. The Curse of the Narrows by Laura M. MacDonald
3. Area 51: An Uncensored History of America's Top Secret
Military Base by Annie Jacobson
4. Sold by J. L. Campbell (IWSG author)
5. Flaming Games by Chris Fey (IWSG author)
6. Origin by Dan Brown
7. The Spy House by Matthew Dunn
8. Revelation by C. J. Sampson
9. Lunch in Paris: A Love Story with Recipes by Elizabeth Bard
10. Galileo's Dream by Kim Stanley Robinson
11. The Rain Drop That Wanted to Stop by Pat Hatt (IWSG author)
12. Tick Tock: A Stitch in Crime by various authors (IWSG anthology)
13. The Perfumed Sleeve by Laura Joh Rowland
14. The Connective by Pat Hatt (IWSG author)
15. The Disconnective by Pat Hatt (IWSG author)
16. A Higher Loyalty by James Comey
17. The Hellfire Club by James Tapper
18. House of Dreams by Pauline Gedge
19. Into the Water by Paula Hawkins
20. Reread Galileo's Dream by Kim Stanley Robinson
(after visiting Padua and Florence, Italy)
21. The Last Volcano: A Man, a Romance, and the Quest
to Understand Nature's Most Magnificent Fury by John Dvorak
22. Delivered by Pat Hatt (IWSG author)
23. Detoured by Pat Hatt (IWSG author)
24. The President is Missing by Bill Clinton and James Patterson
25. Mere Christianity by C. S. Lewis
26. Civilisation by Ken Clark
27. Giotto: The Scrovegni Chapel by Stefano Zuffi
28. The Royal Pavillion Brighton: The Palace of King George IV
edited by David Beevers
29. Northanger Abbey by Jane Austin
30. Whiteout by Ken Follett
31. The Child by Fiona Barton
32. The Haunted Mesa by Louis L'Amour
33. Trixie Belden: Mystery in Arizona by Julie Campbell
34. That Month in Tuscany by Inglath Cooper
Still Reading by Lamplight
Aurora, Colorado, USA
January 9, 2019
© M. Louise (MacBeath) Barbour/Fundy Blue
All Rights Reserved
All Rights Reserved