06/17/2007

Reading from one generation to another

By Kathy Gibbons
Features editor
kgibbons@
record-eagle.com

Read Kathy's past columns here

So my daughter tells me she's just finished a "really good book.”

It's about women, she notes. And it has a happy ending. She knows I would love it.

Then she mentions she got it from the library.

"The library!” I think. I had no idea she'd been to the library, or even knew where her library card was. She's back after finishing her second year of college and isn't here most of the year. So to know she not only still has the card we got 16 years ago when she could barely see over the counter, but still goes to the library and uses it for recreational reading, well, it just made me happy.

She's always been a good reader, but she's also become a very good consumer. I guess I thought if she wanted to read a book these days, she'd buy it. Not that she has any money. So maybe that's where the library comes in.

I've always been an avid reader, starting from Christmas mornings when I couldn't wait for the hoopla to be done so I could take my new stash of Nancy Drews to my room and dig in. I don't find myself reading for fun nearly as much as I used to, but still love it. There is nothing better to pass the time on a treadmill, or poolside on vacation, than a good book.

Anyway, the book she has finished, "The Secret Life of Bees,” isn't due back for another week and she suggests I might want to read it. The next day is Saturday, so I take it along to the gym then and am immediately engrossed.

Later that afternoon, I weigh mowing the lawn against reading again and the book wins. We grill dinner, go bowling, and after, I read some more.

She comes by at one point and asks how I like it. I love it. She asks what part I'm at. When I tell her, she stops in her tracks, looks at me in the same scolding way she might upon finding me eating leftover pasta directly from the refrigerator with my fingers — not that that has ever happened, mind you — and says accusingly, "You've been skimming.”

Yes, I probably was. I tend to devour books I like, so I go fast, skim the dryer parts, then backtrack if I realize I missed an essential element. It's how I read — and a luxury after spending each day here at the paper having to digest every-single-word, since skimming sort of defeats the concept of proofreading.

And it's not like the book came with a non-skimming clause. So I was a little self-righteous in my defense.

By Sunday noon, I'd finished the book. It was so good, I didn't want it to end.

Meanwhile, whether we read every single word or skim, buy it or borrow it, I was reminded how satisfying it is to run across a really good book.

Even better? Seeing the next generation get that, too.