A Serious Reader by Gloria Guest

For this month's blog I decided to re-post a blog from several years ago, with a few updates. I feel confident that since we can re-read the same book over and over and still receive something from it, my past blog can pass also ;).

I’m a serious reader. By that, I don’t mean that I devour books weekly and have an entire stack by my bed. In fact, truth be told, it’s been quite a while since I’ve read my way through an entire book. I’ve been guilty of dropping quite a few of them smack dab in the middle and not finishing them, for reasons I’m not sure, other than they didn’t entirely hold my interest. This is not to say that they weren’t well written however. I feel it is more likely due to some chronic stress that has been a part of my life for awhile now. That being said though, a book for me, or most anything I read, needs to be deep, usually spiritual, although not directly, and purposeful.

I do daily read up on current events. It seems to be a need of mine, to know what’s going on in the world around me. I suppose even though I haven’t worked in the field for a while now, I’m a reporter at heart, as I tend to also feel the need to share my findings on social media.

I like to read historical fiction, and so have read many of Brock and Bodie Thoene’s books, and others who write in that genre. I also am drawn to memoirs. The saying that ‘the truth is stranger than fiction,’ is intriguing and often true. I myself have had some of my own truth questioned, in parts of my memoir. Memoir writing is perhaps one of the most vulnerable genres one can write in, and even though I shrink from it at times, at the same time I am fascinated and drawn in by it.

One book that has piqued my interest in the last while, and I hope to finish by summer's end (meaning I won’t drop it half way through) is such a memoir. It is called educated (in small letters) by Tara Westover and chronicles the author's life beginning in hardship and deprivation, from a young girl born in rural Idaho in 1986, to first setting foot in a classroom at the age of seventeen, and onwards to her further education at Brigham University and Trinity College and Cambridge University. Tara was born to survivalists in the mountains, who stockpiled supplies in the expectation of a government takeover. She and her siblings saw no doctors or nurses, and they were kept so isolated from mainstream society that there was no help to call when her dysfunctional family slipped into violence or her father became delusional. I find it hard to grasp that this was this young girl's life in 1986, in one of the most developed countries of the world. It’s also fascinating and uplifting to read her journey that takes her from such despair and want right into the some of the most upper education halls, in that same country. The strength and determination of the human spirit shines forth.

With this month’s theme being about our reading, I can’t help but think, what a fitting choice; to read about a young woman who wasn’t given the opportunity to read. It makes me realize that I take reading for granted. Reading came easy to me in school and was my most loved subject. From my early years of reading Curious George to Charlotte’s Webb to Little Women to The Hobbit (plus many more) and on to Shakespeare and the classics in high school; I wished that, that was all there was to school! It was the only subject that I was always at the head of the class for; reading and literature.

Next on my list is another memoir, called From The Ashes by Jesse Thistle. It chronicles his life in foster care as a young Metis-Cree from Prince Albert and the abuse he went through, and also the healing. Now living in Toronto, he has climbed through it all to become an assistant professor in Metis Studies at York University.

I believe that there is much to learn from a book, whether we agree with it or not. A book leads us into the lives of others, into our own lives, and our surrounding world. And no matter the subject, as a Christian I believe that God wants to also show up in the pages of the books we choose to read, to lead us ultimately to Him and His goodness. I can’t imagine my life without being able to read. Yet in our country and others there are still those who are illiterate or have never been taught to read well. Now I enjoy reading to my Grandchildren, and it was in fact, the first activity I did with the five year old twins who joined our family nine years ago now. I read to them from my son's book that I had read to him as a child called Butter Cup the Cow, and the bonding began. :)

I don't want to continue to take reading for granted, so as a 'serious reader' my plan is to start taking the privilege of reading, more seriously.

Gloria reads and writes from the prairie town of Pangman, Sk. She is a past reporter with many published articles and columns in various newspapers and a prolific reader of world and current events. She also especially enjoys reading memoirs and devotionals. She has taken editing classes online from Simon Fraser University, Creative Writing classes from the U of T and has published fiction in two anthologies. She continues to dabble at writing her own memoir, along with having other writings in the works.