WHEN THE READING LIGHT WENT ON

I had always been read to as a child. Nap time was a great time. All of us would bring in a comic book we wanted our mother to read. My favorite was Scrooge McDuck, of course. I graduated to books fairly early. Books were always around the house. My parents, when I was at a very early age, splurged to get us a set of encyclopedias. They thought those were important and encouraged us to use them.

I actually got into books because of the movies. I started seeing Tarzan movies when I was very, very young, and that started me reading the Tarzan books. I read every Tarzan book ever written, and I started to collect the books. Then I graduated to Sherlock Holmes, and those books would lead you back to the movies. I’d see Raymond Chandler films, then go get the book. I went through a Rod McKuen poetry phase, a fantasy story phase.

Ashley Judd said in a Rolling Stone interview that the book is always better than the movie. I agree completely.

Reading has shaped me as a human being. I learned life lessons, moral lessons . . . pretty much everything I know I learned from books.