My Love of Reading

As I child, I moved around quite a bit, from New Jersey all the way to Maine, and attended five different schools from grades K-6. I was introverted and shy and found solace in the books I read. When we moved to a new town, my mom would immediately locate the local library and get me a card. I would spend hours with my nose in a book, devouring entire novels in a day, the characters becoming my companions. This is not meant to make you feel sad for me, I loved reading and learning, and still do. My imagination soared and I was always writing my own stories, first in the back pages of old school notebooks and later on a desktop PC my parents bought me for Christmas one year. 

Once I got my first job in NYC, most of my reading was focused around the news and financial markets and my free time was spent shopping and going out. I'd pick up books at Barnes & Noble or Target, but they would sit on a shelf collecting dust. Once I added the title of wife and mom to my resume, I read even less! 

Until 2020, when on that fateful March day the world shut down. A few weeks into the lockdown, a friend named Randi suggested a virtual book club and threw out the suggestion of "Where The Crawdads Sing". A quick add to cart on Amazon had the book in my hands the very next day, and the entire book was finished in 48 hours. This reading monster awoke from her slumber I then set a goal to read five books in 2020, which became ten books in 2021 and I haven't looked back since. (side note: my goal for 2025 is to read 50 books).