1. English wasn't Dad's first language, but one he learned quite well, eventually. As the story goes, he had a good grasp of the basics but a heckofa strong accent when he first came to the states.
He was quite keen on the kiddos learning, early and well.
I think perhaps it was too much stressed too soon, but I distinctly remember dreading Sunday mornings because I knew that the weekly grilling over words in the comics section was coming. It caught on eventually, and instead of getting grief over not learning words quickly enough, I'd get grief for getting into the Sunday paper and pretty much destroying it in my search for the comics.
2. There were some lean times, financially, in my family. We always had food on the table and clothes on out butts, but there were times when the money just wasn't there. The library became a regular weekly fixture. Mom would load up the kiddos and take us over. There weren't any rules as far as what to pick out, and I would load up on all kinds of books.
3. This is where I mention that I've always read quite a bit, and pretty fast, but from what I've read of other bloggers, that really isn't random or weird, just par for the course. Besides, as fast as I did read, Little Brother read about twice as fast... booger.
4. I got some grief in some of my high school english classes for reading other books than what was assigned in class. The problem was that I'd have already read and sometimes re-read the assigned material, and spending quality reading time in class reading it over again wasn't something that I was terribly keen on doing.
5. My favorite classes in College were the Medieval lit classes. Good stuff, once you got the hang of middle english spelling. The stories were pretty gruesome, too, so that was kind of cool.
6. When I had some free time in Iraq, I was usually reading. I was pleasantly surprised with the number of 'lit' books we got in care packages, but I was honestly just as happy reading the usual page turners like King, Morrell, Koontz, etc.
7. I'm on my 4th copy of Steven Pressfield's Gates of Fire. Great book. Two times I've loaned it out only to get it back pretty worn out. One book I re-read, dog-eared, spilled food on, and basically took with me everywhere for a couple of days (I was taking my time on the third readthrough of that book, m'kay?), and I eventually had to replace it.
He was quite keen on the kiddos learning, early and well.
I think perhaps it was too much stressed too soon, but I distinctly remember dreading Sunday mornings because I knew that the weekly grilling over words in the comics section was coming. It caught on eventually, and instead of getting grief over not learning words quickly enough, I'd get grief for getting into the Sunday paper and pretty much destroying it in my search for the comics.
2. There were some lean times, financially, in my family. We always had food on the table and clothes on out butts, but there were times when the money just wasn't there. The library became a regular weekly fixture. Mom would load up the kiddos and take us over. There weren't any rules as far as what to pick out, and I would load up on all kinds of books.
3. This is where I mention that I've always read quite a bit, and pretty fast, but from what I've read of other bloggers, that really isn't random or weird, just par for the course. Besides, as fast as I did read, Little Brother read about twice as fast... booger.
4. I got some grief in some of my high school english classes for reading other books than what was assigned in class. The problem was that I'd have already read and sometimes re-read the assigned material, and spending quality reading time in class reading it over again wasn't something that I was terribly keen on doing.
5. My favorite classes in College were the Medieval lit classes. Good stuff, once you got the hang of middle english spelling. The stories were pretty gruesome, too, so that was kind of cool.
6. When I had some free time in Iraq, I was usually reading. I was pleasantly surprised with the number of 'lit' books we got in care packages, but I was honestly just as happy reading the usual page turners like King, Morrell, Koontz, etc.
7. I'm on my 4th copy of Steven Pressfield's Gates of Fire. Great book. Two times I've loaned it out only to get it back pretty worn out. One book I re-read, dog-eared, spilled food on, and basically took with me everywhere for a couple of days (I was taking my time on the third readthrough of that book, m'kay?), and I eventually had to replace it.
4 comments:
AHHHH books, the one love that has never let me down.....
added Gates of Fire to the "to be read" list.....
Yeah, Gates of Fire is on my list of authors that almost understand combat, courage and commitment - I always recommend it. I like none of his other books as well, but think he did a fine job with the Afghan Campaign, and it works this time period over when compared with Alexander's.
Have you read the same author's Killing Rommel? Excellent bit of WWII fiction with the LRDG.
Matt
St Paul
I've only read Gates of Fire, but Pressfield's a name that I'll be keeping an eye out for in the future.
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