I read to learn, to be intellectually stimulated, to enjoy a good story. I have always enjoyed reading, but my aunt Priscilla really nurtured my love for books by reading aloud to me and giving me wonderful books for my birthdays. She turned me on to
Beatrix Potter
and
E.B.White
as a child,
Lloyd Alexander
as an early teen, and
Tolkein
when I was in high school. My all-time favorite author is
Gabriel Garcia-Marquez
, because he weaves fascinating stories with fanciful sentences and gorgeous words (even in translation). Right now I'm reading
Don Quixote
(by
Miguel Cervantes
), but I think I'm going to put it away because I'm just not bonding with it. Someone once told me that if you subtract your age from 100, that's how many pages you should give a book you're not enjoying before
you decide to bag it. I gave Cervantes double that, just because it's a classic, but I'm moving on to
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (by
Stieg Larsson
). I want to read it before the movie gets released in the US.
