Get Caught in the Act--of Reading!

It seems that this is the start of "Get Caught Reading Month."

I should have no problem being caught and convicted of that charge because I'm always reading something. Books. Magazines. Junk mail. Cereal boxes. The slip attached to the mattress. Anything and everything. Well, almost everything.

And I doubt if I'll ever be reduced for long to reading any of those other things because my to-be-read stack of books continues to grow faster than I can read them. Most of that reading is in preparation of articles, books, speaking engagements, or Sunday school lessons. After all, that's my work. But it's my pleasure reading, too. (As someone famously said--and surely it was Mark Twain or Benjamin Franklin because they're credited with saying everything wise and pithy, even if they didn't say it--"If you find a job you truly enjoy, you'll never work another day in your life.")

The thing that gives me more pleasure than my own reading is seeing others learn to enjoy reading.

One year while teaching, I had a formerly homeschooled student enroll in the school. I noticed quickly that she was different from the other students, all of whom had received nothing but traditional schooling. (This was in the early years of homeschooling, when few people, except those doing it, knew anything about homeschooling.) Whereas when the other students finished and turned in a test, they typically sat doing nothing or got into trouble, the former homeschooler immediately got out a book and read. I was impressed.

Closer to home and to my heart is seeing my grandchildren learning to enjoy reading. A visit to the library is to them a preferred outing. In fact, I think they would choose the library over a visit to the ice cream shop. And they are sure to appreciate the gift of a book on the subjects of their current interests. One of the granddaughters was especially excited during our recent trip to Colonial Williamsburg because she had just finished reading Felicity's World in the American Girl series of books.

Although my wife is an avid reader of historical fiction, she's not a book collector like me. My shelves are full. Many shelves have books shelved two deep, a row in front of another, and books laid flat on top of those. My wife often says, "If you buy another book, you have to get rid of two." (Thankfully, she hasn't yet enforced that law.) I respond by saying, "I just need more shelves."

Almost as precious as seeing grandchildren learning to enjoy reading is having a wife and children who recognize books that I would find useful and enjoyable and then getting them for me. Despite my wife's repeated pleas for me to buy no more books, she has bought me several good books, including Walter Edgar's tome South Carolina: A History and Thomas Connelly's two-volume history of the Army of Tennessee, The Army of Tennessee and Autumn of Glory.

Recently, one of my daughters noticed two incomplete sets of books being discarded by her local library and recognized them as ones of interest to me. She obtained them for me: ten volumes of the Official Record of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of Rebellion and five volumes of Southern Historical Society Papers. I'm sure they'll come in handy for some future writing projects.

Roman statesman Cicero reputedly said, "A home without books is like a body without a soul." The only thing I can think of that would be worse is a home full of books but no one reading them.

Not all books are of equal quality or use, of course. As Francis Bacon said, "Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested."

You don't want to be caught speeding or breaking and entering, but it's perfectly acceptable, even desirable, to be caught reading the right stuff.

What are you currently reading?