BIRTHDAYS

I read this morning that this is the 200^th birthday of the Victorian novelist Anthony Trollope. We readers should really celebrate this because

     He said: “The habit of reading is the only one I know in which there is no alloy. It lasts when all other pleasures fade. It will be there to support you when all other resources are gone. It will be present to you when the energies of your body have fallen away from you. It will make your hours pleasant to you as long as you live.”

For a reader, truer words were never spoken.

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It is also the 73^rd birthday of Barbra Streisand. How do I know this? First of all because I know that she was born the same year I was. And because I know the lyrics to her version of I’m Five.  “…I’m five – on April 24^th."

So, nu?

It’s also the birthday of Sue Grafton and Robert Penn Warren. Great day for birthdays of all kinds.  And a very merry unbirthday to you.

This was just an impromptu post - Today is also Arbor day, and I've a nice post to post about trees. See you later! 

READING ANOTHER LIFE

Today, according to the Writer’s Almanac, is the birthday of Pulitzer Prize winning novelist Anne Tyler, she of The Accidental Tourist and Breathing Lessons.  Today’s entry included a quote from her: I want to live other lives. I’ve never quite believed that one chance is all I get. Writing is my way of making other chances.”  Aha! That struck a note! Reading is my way of making other chances, of living other lives in other worlds, and, especially now when my traveling days are dwindling down to a precious few, of learning about those worlds.

Strangely enough, when I read another life, I don’t want to read it in the first person, and I don’t want to read it in the present tense. Before I choose a book I have to flip through to the first pages to be sure I’m getting third person, past tense. Nowadays, I can go to Amazon and “Look Inside”. Saves me a lot of aggravation.

When I read another life now, I have certain eras in which I’m interested. Years ago, when I was much younger, I was a Sci-Fi and Fantasy aficionado: Frank Herbert, Robert Heinlein, Anne McCaffrey. I was looking forward. Although I do love a mystery from any age at all, today, l suppose, I’m looking back: anything Medieval, Renaissance, Regency, but nothing Victorian or later. 

Why? I’ll tell you: I don’t know!