I have always loved reading. When I was in elementary school, the school librarian challenged me to read something beyond my typical reading level. She handed me a book. "Emily," she said exuberantly, "I've noticed that you return your books a couple of days after you check them out, way before they are due. I think you need a challenge. I also know that you love to dream, and this book is full of dreaming, but with some hard reality in it. I want you to read it and then write down a few thoughts about the story. Nothing to long , but I want your opinion of it." I looked at the cover of the ancient book she had handed me, with it's torn dust jacket. "How Do I Love Thee, A biography of Robert and Elizabeth Browning". I wondered who in the world would read a book on how you love someone. But the age-old saying is true, don't judge a book by its cover....EVER! I read the book in 2 days and eagerly brought back the book to the librarian with a long I fell in love with the story of the Brownings and their poetry, and then with the contemporaries of their day like Emily Dickinson and Christina Rossetti. Soon, I was reading Dickens, Austen, Hugo, Tolstoy, and Gaskell. All that to say, I was in a thrift shop a few days ago, and found a copy of the book that started it all, and I purchased it for a mere fifty-cents. I re-read the story and fell in love all over again.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLkcR9UR9us
That librarian showed a little interest in you and started you down a new path, how small an investment in another person can make a big difference. I just ordered a "new" novelist for my summer read - Camus - The Stranger. Haven't read him before -but he was an important 20th century influence on modernity. The notes on it reminded me of Crime & Punishment - a book I read as an adolescent that made a profound impact.
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