I can’t remember the first book I ever read for fun. One of the earliest I remember is “From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler” by E. L. Konigsburg. It’s about a young brother and sister who run away from home and live (without permission) in a museum. It took me a couple of attempts to get through it. No fault to the book, my attentions span wasn’t the best.
I remember the glorious excitement of the book order brochures in school. My bad habit was to cajole my mom into giving me money to buy the books, then not reading them when they arrived. I did get over this and eventually read most of the books I had ordered.
Somewhere in there I picked up a terrible habit; skimming instead of reading. I’d burn through books very quickly but only because I was only hitting the the high points.
The probable reason for the happening is that my motivation for reading changed. As I had access to more and more once unattainable movies (my one true passion), reading became much less interesting. Unless I was reading about movies.
Only within the last five years or so have I make real efforts to re-lean how to read effectively. It’s not been an easy task. I naturally fall into the habit of skimming through the words, not really absorbing the prose, regardless of it’s quality.
It’s a struggle I still have, but slowly, methodically, I’m getting there.
Now if I could just remember how to write.
