My most memorable (and not at all my most pleasurable) reading experience was reading King's 'Salem's Lot, while my father's twin was dying. We'd go up to the hospital and stay for a couple of hours. My uncle was out of it a fair bit, and often agitated when he was not out of it. One day, there was a baseball game on. The Sox won, and it was a big deal. On TV, everyone was shouting that the game was over. My uncle kept trying to get out of the bed, but he was too weak. He also kept taking off his oxygen mask. When my parents tried to stop him, he said, "But it's over. They said it's over. It's over. Is it over?" It broke my heart.

I had 'Salem's Lot with me, because sometimes on long visits, I needed a break. I was nineteen years old, and this was definitely one of those times, so I went to the solarium to read. Well, the sun started to set, and I was reading frigging 'Salem's Lot — you know? I got a wiggins. A major wiggins. I laughed at myself, and stuck the book in my pocketbook. It was the 80s; big pocketbooks were big. I went back to my uncle's room, and he was sleeping. I left them there, and drove myself home.

By the time I got home, it was dark. I had to enter the empty house, alone. The door was original to the house, which is about 125 years old now, so, it was about 105 years old, then. At the time, the only lock we had was the one that opened with a skeleton key that we kept in the mailbox.

I started up the front steps, went back down, opened the trunk of my car, took the book out of my purse, threw it in the trunk, slammed the trunk shut, and ran in the house.

I may have gone and found a cross necklace, too.

It's not pleasurable, but it's an interesting memory -- one summer I was the beach and caught my teenage guy cousin reading my Sweet Valley High books. He claimed there was nothing else to read and he was kind of curious about it.

Oh!

One day I was really, really bored, and I was stuck at an aunt's with the parents out doing whatever, and I couldn't find anything else to read, and that was when I read my first Babysitters Club book. I went on to read a whole bunch more.

By the time I got home, it was dark. I had to enter the empty house, alone.

Ohhhh. Cindy, your post reminded me of when I read (re-read, mind you!) The Haunting of Hill House right after Pete and I had moved into our house. Our house that makes odd creaky noises, and that I had not gotten at ALL used to. That was not a good night.

My mother has told me that when I was in kindergarten or first grade I read Poe's "The Gold Bug" and terrified myself for days. I was not allowed to read Poe for several years. I have no memory of the actual reading, though.

When I went back and re-read the story as a teenager, it was not even a little buit scary.

Although I don't have a sense memry of it, the first time I read Jane Eyre, when I was in 4th grade, was an eye opening experience. Although I didn't "get" the whole Mr. Rochester part of the book very well, when Jane had her temper tantrum and yelled at her aunt and got ocked in the red room, it was really, really the first time I felt like any character was ME. I just, then, knew her exact anger even though she was really a good person. I was also profoundly affected by her relationship with Helen Burns and with the nice teacher. Helen Burns made ME want to be a better person, too.

I was alost dissappointed the next time I read it, in 7th grade, to realize that that wasn't even the major portion of the book that it seemed to me.

I don't have sense memories of reading particular books, but I do remember walking to the library, which was the only place I was allowed to walk, from the ages of 7 to about 14, and coming back with whopping loads of books-- adult, children's, fiction, biographies, scifi, mysteries, and even one of my favorites in 6th grade or so, Donald Johannsons book about discovering the skelton of Lucy. I mostly sat at the kitchen table to read as my house was crowded, and the upstairs where the bedrooms were either too cold in winter or too hot in summer to be. I also read a lot on our front porch. I liked to eat as I read-- apples (like Jo from Little Women) or cereal, after which I drank the milk from the bowl (Like Heidi and her goat's milk). Sometimes, in a wekkend, I might read 10 books. It was wonderful.

I miss thoe days, and wish I could get that much pleasure and just read that much, again. Now it is harder for me to read, both because I am busy and don't have summers off, and because it is very hard, because of my early experience with having all the time in the world, to read a book in multiple sittings.

These days, I am lucky if I read twenty new books a year. And, although I bascally skipped over the YA genre as a child and went right to the "grown-up books", a lot of my new ones are YA. I do a lot of re-reading-- The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, The Old Fashioned Girl, old, favorite Agatha Christies. But, still not the same as when I was young.

I'm terrified that someday I will read a Babysitter's Club book and then my life will be sucked in.

Also, you would think I would be a better speller for being such a reader. Or a better typist for being a secretary...

Ohhhh. Cindy, your post reminded me of when I read (re-read, mind you!) The Haunting of Hill House right after Pete and I had moved into our house. Our house that makes odd creaky noises, and that I had not gotten at ALL used to. That was not a good night.

Oh Jilli, you poor thing. I can only imagine.

I was on a Stephen King kick one summer (maybe the same one) and my parents were away a lot. I was very used to the house, but not at all used to staying there, alone. I ended up sleeping on the couch a lot, because I was too afraid to go upstairs. Then I'd wake in the middle of the night, and realize how close I was to ground level, and how many windows there were, and be dreadfully afraid to stay downstairs, but too afraid to get off the couch.

My mother and I also watched 'Salem's Lot, on TV (at a different time, I can't remember if it was before or after, I think it was even during a different year) and spooked ourselves, terribly. We realized we were out of milk soon after the film ended, and it was rather late at night. Neither of us wanted to go out to the store, alone. Neither of us wanted to stay home alone, so we went to the store, together.

I've never read The Haunting of Hill House. I may have to pick it up, for the summer. I haven't read a scary book in a long time.

cereal...

I miss thoe days, and wish I could get that much pleasure and just read that much, again. Now it is harder for me to read, both because I am busy and don't have summers off, and because it is very hard, because of my early experience with having all the time in the world, to read a book in multiple sittings.

Sophia, this is one thing I'm looking forward to for September, with all three kids in school, for a full day. I used to put away between a book and five a week, depending. I have a terrible time reading books now, because me sitting quietly tells the kids I have free time.