Philothea
Life in the JVC

My parents' bookshelf

February 18, 2003
Being sick left me in my room with nothing to do, so I did a lot of thinking, about everything, but mostly just thinking of old memories. Daniel and Anne�s fathers are English teachers, so they grew up in houses filled with books, and grew up seeing people read. I didn�t have that, though I still somehow managed to be the a huge book junkie. I wonder what it will be like for my children. What if they don�t like to read when they�ll have such a good example? I�m not looking for pity, the �The only books in my house were the Bible and the Sears Roebuck catalog�. I had lots of books, because two of my aunts with no daughters gave me their childhood collections, we had a 1983 encyclopedia, and my uncle Jim gave me so many wonderful books when I was a little older. And my parents took me to the library every three weeks, for which I�m truly grateful.

But I seriously did read every book in our house growing up, and I can remember all the books that my parents owned on one shelf in my father�s closet.

Just and Unjust Wars: A Moral Argument With Historical Illustrations by Michael Walzer- This was a book from my Dad�s West Point days. I read it when I was 10. Reading this was how I found out that not everybody supported the Vietnam War (Dad always told us that it was just mismanaged). It was a very thoughtful book, although some of the examples of wartime atrocities were probably too much for me to handle at the time.

Roots by Alex Haley- My mom lent me this book when I was 11. �Now Megan, this has grownup stuff in it, so if you have any questions, just let me know,� she said. It was the first book that I couldn�t finish in one sitting. I learned about both sex and rape from reading this.

Fatherhood and Time Flies by Bill Cosby- Funny books. I found out that my Dad stole some of his anecdotes from Bill Cosby. When I asked him why he did that, he said they sounded funnier if he said they happened to him. That seemed reasonable.

Ronald Reagan: An American Life by his ghostwriters. Dad is a big fan of Reagan. So big he became a Republican. So big he named one of his sons Reagan. Which rhymes with my name, but no one noticed that until it was too late. I liked the stories about his college and radio days the best.

The Norton Anthology of English Literature Two volumes- Ah, yes! If these had been the only books I owned, it would have been enough. It was from Dad�s one English course in college. I always skipped over the �long� poems because they bored me, but I lapped up the plays, stories, and shorter poems. This is where I first fell in love with Marlowe, Housman, Rossetti (Goblin Market was one long poem I read), Browning, Lessing, and so many others for the first time. Liam stole them from me, but I�ve appropriated so many of our common books that I can�t hold it against him.

Various textbooks My father got his MBA when I was 8, and I used to read the case studies in the marketing books. The math bored me. Then my mother went to community college when I was in Junior High (and kicked ass, I might add-getting into the honor society while working 30 hours and taking care of five kids). She took a bunch of sociology and psychology courses and I read all of them, except for the abnormal psychology textbook. Mom wouldn�t let me read it because she said it would give me too many ideas. She was probably right. My favorite one was the developmental psychology textbook, specifically the adolescence chapter. It was so much more helpful than those Always propaganda pamphlets.

I didn�t realize until I wrote this how many of these books left me scarred for life. I read all these by the time I was 13, so you can imagine what a strange child I was.

6:51 p.m.
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