Ever since I learned to read when I was four, I’ve been a rabid reader of fiction. First I read children’s books like Dick and Jane, Harry the Dirty Dog, Flat Stanley and Grimm’s Fairy Tales.
By the time I was in first grade, I was checking books out from the town library and borrowing others from my school library. I was a huge fan of comic books and read the Archie’s, Spiderman, the Hulk, Batman, X-Men, Fantastic Four, the Flash, the Black Panther and more. I dreamt about being a superhero.
In the third grade, I read both fiction and “historical” books about how the US conquered the American Indians. I read about about Custer, Pocahontas, and Tecumseh.
In 5th grade, my school librarian suggested I read books from the Indian perspective. She said that books on US heroes were biased. She pointed me to books about Sitting Bull, Cochise, Geronimo, Red Cloud and Crazy Horse.
From there I moved onto Westerns. Max Brand and Louis Lamour were my favorite authors. I read about these heroic solitary gunslingers who lived alone in the Wild West, traveling from town to town to defeat bad guys.
Around this time, I discovered Science Fiction. First it was Orson Welles and Isaac Asimov and Ray Bradbury novels. Then I found Orson Scott Card, Madeleine L’Engle and others.
In high school, I read murder mysteries and general fiction. I would go to the library and check out 10 books each week. Whenever I was finished with in class work early (which was always), I’d pull out a book to read.
As a young adult, I became a fan of John D McDonald, Robert B. Parker, Robert Crais and Dennis Lehane.
I loved fiction. I would immerse myself into a book and become lost in a fantasy world. I could lay on the sofa for hours reading until I was bleary eyed and in a stupor from being of touch with the world around me.
Other than assigned school reading – I rarely read nonfiction books until I was in my 30s. Then I started to read business books and self help books solely to learn how to sell, how to manage and how to become rich. For most of the next 20 years, I read non-fiction business books except for an occasional novel when I was on vacation.
I still savored reading fiction. I just had so little spare time outside of work, that I had to sacrifice reading for pleasure.
Aside from reading an occasional new release from Crais, Lehane or Parker’s Estate (Ace Atkins took over the series), today I have little interest in fiction.
Anything that involves murder, lawyers or writers is of no interest to me. I have no desire to read most science fiction, although I do enjoy dystopian novels like the Hunger Games series, Just Cronin’s series, and the Stand.
I read a lot of memoirs now and a fair bit of history. Recently, the Reason podcast recommended Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series and I just started reading that.
Otherwise, I have almost no interest in general fiction anymore.
I was wondering why I am rarely interested in fiction anymore. Whether it is books, TV or movies, I find most fiction to be formulaic and boring. But then, so is bad nonfiction – and there’s plenty of that too.
Then I thought, I don’t get immersed in fiction anymore becauseI no longer feel the need to escape reality. I had a rough childhood. Then as a teen, I was self conscious and shy. As a young adult, I felt like a failure as a college dropout and struggling salesman. As an older adult, I rarely felt like a superhero. I needed an escape from reality then.
But not anymore.
I am fascinated with the world around me now.
I study the forest every day when I walk the dog. I see the flora and fauna making minute changes as the seasons pass.
Sometimes at night when I am reading or wasting time on the Internet, Wiggles jumps up on me and wants a belly rub. When I’m thinking straight, I’ll put down my iPad and focus 100% on her. It’s one of the highlights of my life.
When I workout, I am hyper aware of my breath, my joints, my movements and the temperature.
When I swim, I am literally immersed in my own world or breathing, counting strokes and gliding.
Real life is wonderful in so many ways, that I don’t need or want to escape it anymore.