My father died when I was quite small, so my uncle used to buy me books and read them to me.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
When I was twelve, Uncle Randall looked up long enough to see that I was a reader as well, so he walked me down his hall to a linen-closet door and opened it up onto a wall of paperbacks. There were books behind books, as deep in as I could reach. He told me to take three, and when I was done, bring them back and take three more.
My father was a tyrant about reading, and that put me off books when I was little.
I read a book a day when I was a kid. My family was not literary; we did not have any books in the house.
Books were in my family - books were my family.
And my father always took me to the library. We were both book addicts.
I was about 11 or 12 when I began to pick up my mother's books.
By the time I was in my teens, I was reading science fiction. I had this maternal uncle who had cartons of books. It's important to read because you have to fill your head with words.
My grandfather had a particularly important influence on my life, even though I didn't visit him often, since he lived about three miles out of town and he died when I was six. He was remarkably curious about the world, and he read lots of books.
My grandparents used to bring me books every time they saw me.
I was an early reader, and my grandmother, who as a child had been forbidden to read by a father who believed books to be frivolous time-wasters, delighted in putting her favorite volumes into her grandchildren's hands.