Seasonal Plume

Today’s Booking Through Thursday is about libraries:

Whether you usually read off of your own book pile or from the library shelves NOW, chances are you started off with trips to the library. So…what is your earliest memory of a library? Who took you? Do you have you any funny/odd memories of the library?

My earliest memories of libraries were all in our school library in the Philippines, when I was in grade school. As a kid who would finish Nancy Drew mysteries within the two or three hours it took to drive home from the city with a new book, the library was the only place I could satisfy my search for more and more Nancy Drew books to read. They had an old collection, usually the Grosset & Dunlap Pc library editions.

Sometimes I went there to just look around. I read everything from encyclopedias to children’s books (when I was younger, the children’s section had a small rug and floor pillows!). It was a quiet place where I could just mill around. I loved looking at my full library card, a dull yellow, with all the date stamps and the librarian’s signature on each return. It was usually wrinkled by the end of the school year, the corners folded. That is, unless I had to get another card.

One of the odd memories I have of our school library was seeking its peace and quiet with my best friend after a particularly “stressful” afternoon which included a secret admirer declaring himself. But, who should be there, but the guy I had a crush on, asking me what happened with The Talk.

My response: a rather loud, squeaky “What?!“

Since moving to Singapore and starting work, I’ve been going to a local books/supplies store after office to pick up various odds and ends like magnets, pens, desk organizers, and the like. Near the cashier, there’s a few stacks of children’s books and on them are a few Nancy Drew books scattered here and there. I’m sure you’ve probably heard of Nancy Drew at some point in your life, but for the uninitiated, Nancy Drew is a series of books about, well, Nancy Drew. She is a titian-haired amateur teen detective adept at getting into, and out of, close calls with robbers, criminals, and the like. Oh, and solving mysteries.

She was my heroine when I was a child, hungrily devouring the books the moment my mother buys it for us and finishing it in half a day (these days I take about two hours). We have a few couple dozen of the books at home, and frankly, one of my visions of the perfect library once I settle down is one with the complete series. Alright, so sometimes (okay, a lot of times) the stories and the things Nancy gets into are quite out of this world, but hell, it was great fun when I was a child and it’s still great fun even now. I’d collect all, from #1: The Secret of the Old Clock to #56: The Thirteenth Pearl, since those were the “originals”. Yes, they’re all written by ghostwriters, but for some reason, I’ve never looked at the paperbacks seriously.

Only now, I just found out, there are new ones added into the list of books published as “originals” (”my” originals). Apparently, in 2006, Simon and Schuster released numbers 57-64 in yellow hardbacks. And that’s what sucked me into the series again. As with everything here in Singapore, it’s more expensive than if I get it in the Philippines, but I just have to get my Nancy Drew fix, apparently. :P The “new” but “original” books are:

#57: The Triple Hoax
#58: The Flying Saucer Mystery
#59: The Secret in the Old Lace
#60: The Greek Symbol Mystery
#61: The Swami’s Ring
#62: The Kachina Doll Mystery
#63: The Twin Dilemma
#64: Captive Witness

This is a rather shrewd move for them, since it obviously worked on me–after seeing the numbers over #56 (it was like, “zomg the last book!”), I immediately snapped one up: #60: The Greek Symbol Mystery, only because it was the first one I saw. I’m guessing that there are others out there who, while knowing that they they’re all ghost-written, still feel that the hardbacks are “authentic”. (And no, it’s not that I prefer hardbacks; I actually prefer paperbacks over the former usually.)

I would be the first to admit that I’m buying them really only because it’s “authentic Nancy Drew”. The Greek Symbol Mystery was somewhat interesting, but as with everything that’s from early childhood, the magic isn’t the same, if it’s even there. But then, I wouldn’t want it any other way. :)

I’d been doing a fair number of reading lately, and I’m slightly ahead with four books read on the third week of the year; the fourth was a re-read, which made reading quicker. I’m tracking progress on my library page, which (for now) unlinked on the main menu and updated manually. (I plan on using the Now Reading plugin for it, but until I have time to sit down and sort itself out, the manually updating WP page will have to do. (I also actually feel like changing the actual layout, but we’ll see.) Much thanks to Vega for pointing it out!) So far, I’ve read the following:

1. The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath (finished January 3)
2. My Name is Red by Orhan Pamuk (finished January 13)
3. The Amulet of Samarkand (book one in The Bartimaeus Trilogy) by Jonathan Stroud (finished January 15)
4. Dusk (Po-on) by F. Sionil Jose (finished January 17)

I mean to write down my thoughts of each book in particular soon. :) As for the last, it was a re-read as I wanted to finally finish the Rosales novels by the same author, and in chronological order, Dusk is the first. I’d read Dusk before, but haven’t read the rest, although I know I had picked up My Brother, My Executioner sometime but have not finished it. I’m now reading Tree, the second book according to chronology.

I’m liking the fact that having a goal for the year (50 books) is spurring me to rediscover my love for reading. I’ve always loved reading as a child all the way ’til I was in high school, but when college came and I was caught up in the Whole New World of software, web development, and of course Having A Boyfriend™ — I did not read as much as I should have (nor write, for that matter). I read here and there but I probably read only five new books a year; quite a disgrace.

Now I’ve started to slip back into reading, and I like it. My boss/friend Pao and I were talking on the way to Makati one day early this week, where I told him about my plan to read 50 books this year, and he said that it was something he regretted not doing as a child — read more books. He said he thought that reading is something you develop an interest for when you’re still a child, and once you’re grown it’s difficult to get into if you weren’t keen on reading when you were younger. And I think he’s right, and I’m grateful my parents let us have all the books we wanted (within reason) when we were kids. (My mom used to get angry with me, though, because once we bought a book from the bookstore (usually Nancy Drew) I would read them on the way home, and I’d have finished it already by the time we got home as the travel time then was around an hour and a half. Hee.)

It’s curious, though, about how people exactly get/develop that interest in reading. My older sister and I are avid readers, but our youngest, quite sadly, doesn’t. She tries to keep up with us — she’d propose we sit around and read, but after a few minutes of sitting/lying/etc still and reading, she’d start talking, or get bored with her book. I think she’s getting more interested in books now, which is great; she always wants to go to the bookstore and sit around and read. The thought intrigued me, though — how do people develop that interest in reading? Is it developed, or handed down, or a product of your environment, or…? Maybe it’s all three (or whatever else).

How did you start reading?