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Old 01-16-2013, 07:33 AM   #162
Silmarillion
Nameless Being
 
This discussion brings to mind a poignant memory from my early teenage years: I was sitting in a shopping plaza food court, waiting for my grandmother to return from having a necklace clasp fixed. I was reading Anne Rice's Queen Of The Damned, and was so engrossed that I didn't notice that anybody was near me until a smoothie was set down in between me and the book. When I looked up, there was a gaggle of "goth kids" at my table, and they proceeded to engage me in a discussion about vampires in literature. The most profound part of the memory is the feeling of the book in my hands, as I was cripplingly terrified of social interaction with others my age, and I found myself holding the book in a death-grip, as though refusing to relinquish it would somehow protect me from harm.

It's safe to say that one of the biggest reasons that I became a reader was to escape reality, therefore. My mother read to me every day as a child, as far back as I can remember, and I do believe that in part she did it to help me escape the domestic abuse of her then-boyfriend. When I began school, I found that I was socially crippled and naturally subservient due to this abuse, and I was thus an easy target for bullies throughout my entire schooling years. I would spend every recess and lunch break in the library, where the librarians would behave towards bullies as mother bears protecting their cubs, and I recall receiving an award for reading the entire fiction selection. My school library then contacted the community library (to whom I couldn't travel due to my mother's working hours and our rural location) to allow me to borrow from the community library, through school. The librarians, as my mother had before them, were both protecting me and nourishing a passion for reading within me.

I suppose that the passion has never left me. I've since matured and grown confident within myself enough that I'm no longer a natural target for bullying behaviour (or perhaps I've learned to ignore it and treat it as it is, nothing more than a petty power-struggle), and I no longer read to necessarily escape reality. As a result, I do find that I read less and less - I'm really quite busy enjoying reality for what it is - but I also find that my reading tastes are broadening every year. My family still only ever purchase gift vouchers for book stores when they choose to give gifts to me, and I've convinced the community library to lift the three-books-per-transaction limit for my account. While I do wish that my home and school experiences had been gentler when I was young, at the same time I realise that I probably wouldn't be as passionate a reader without those experiences shaping me the way that they did.
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