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When I was young, my parents had a library in our living room. I was always free to browse and read.

My mother brought us to the library every week, and I read a lot. That's what kept me company. I went from school to school, but there was always reading.

When I was 14, I saw a library for the first time.

I have three libraries. As a gift, a friend alphabetized and organized my main library of novels, history books, and nonfiction. Then I have a photo-book collection. Then there's this nearly whole room of my childhood books. I've also got cookbooks and a big collection of horse-related books.

I discovered reading through libraries. I grew up in a house that wasn't brimming with books.

Like a lot of inwardly drawn young people, I spent a lot of time in libraries. At my high school, I often spent my lunch breaks there.

One of the greatest gifts my brother and I received from my mother was her love of literature and language. With their boundless energy, libraries open the door to these worlds and so many others. I urge young and old alike to embrace all that libraries have to offer.

For the best part of my childhood I visited the local library three or four times a week, hunching in the stacks on a foam rubber stool and devouring children's fiction, classics, salacious thrillers, horror and sci-fi, books about cinema and origami and natural history, to the point where my parents encouraged me to read a little less.

As a child, I spent a lot of time at the library.

My great-grandfather was a self-taught man, and his library was extraordinary. I read the lot.