Reading Novels

I wish I were an avid reader of classic novels. Really, I both admire and marvel at those people who can spend hours reading books.

Let me put it this way, I love to read. But I love to read non-fiction; books, magazines and newspapers. And when I read non-fiction, I prefer mystery novels by Scott Turrow and Tom Clancy.

Lately, I'd been avidly following a blog by a Filipino writer, at http://www.jessicarulestheuniverse.com/ and from it, soon discovered the great many novels available out there, which I've missed in my younger days. I must admit that I got embarassed by my lack of literary finesse.

So last week, I took out my old library card and headed to the public library to check out a few books. I started with two Ernest Hemingway novels, "For Whom the Bells Toll and Farewell to Arms." I reserved also the "Catcher in the Rye" by J.D.Salinger.

In North America, especially Canada and the USA, people love to read. This habit of reading is usually taken up at an early age, derived from exposure to books at daycare centres and having been given reading assignments early at the public schools.

Here in Canada, it is so ordinary to see people of all ages reading books while waiting for or inside the bus or train, while having lunch or coffee, and sometimes, even when crossing the street. You also see Canadians and Americans reading their books while getting their tans at the beach or while simply enjoying the sun at the park.

Last Sunday, for instance, when we watched a musical, the person beside me was reading a book before the start of the show and during the intermission. It must have been a very good book.

I have no excuse for not having acquired the reading bug; I grew up in a household where my mother and two aunts and older siblings loved to read. I remember seeing books scattered in our living room, the Perry Mason books of Erle Stanley Gardner and the romance novels of Emily Loring and also the Mills & Boon-types, read by my teenaged sisters. My father, too, loved to read, but like me, he preferred non-fiction.

My early English reading consisted of the daily Philippine broadsheet, The Manila Times, and the weekly magazine, Philippine Graphics. Later on, in high school, I got exposed to both American and English Literature, and then in college, to the Filipino English writings.