I was lucky to have a father who read extensively, and our house was full of books. Dad would take us to the library and we would choose a book for him to read to us every night. There was one book in particular, translated from German, that we loved and it was on almost permanent loan. I think Dad could recite it from memory by the time we were able to read it ourselves. After many years of searching, I finally found a copy in a second hand bookshop in New Zealand and had it shipped over for my sister's 50th birthday.
i can't really remember a time I didn't read once I had mastered the art. I was the proverbial kid reading by torchlight under the covers. I read everything, including cereal boxes at breakfast, and my parents encouraged me to look things up in dictionaries and encyclopaedias. This usually meant several hours of reading as each entry led me to something else of interest. I count myself very fortunate to have had father who encouraged me to expand my interest in reading and later history, geography, art and so on. My father died in 1986 and I still miss him. I've just bought Barbara W Tuchman's book, The Guns of August, which was the last book he was reading before he died and I will be thinking of him as I read it and thanking him for the encouragement he gave me to develop my love of learning.
Dad.