t marks Kristin's post for future reference

The only kind of trouble I ever got into for reading was when I got so sucked into a book that I lost track of time and forgot to do something.

Also the image of a wee Deb asleep with a book splayed open on her chest is just adorable.

One of the things that always gets an awwwwww from me is seeing a very small child, fast asleep, with a large book tented over his or her face.

I fall asleep while reading all the time (not because the book is boring, because I can't keep my eyes open). And I fall asleep on the exact same position in which I was reading, glasses on and light not turned off, so many times people still think I'm awake, for quite a while, when I'm already fast asleep.

I never got in trouble with my parents for reading anything. They monitored pretty carefully what we watched on TV and movie, not so much with books. In fact, they were quite surprised to discover how I constantly read about things that I was never allowed to be exposed to on TV.

The one person who wanted to stop me from reading something was a librarian who wouldn't want to let me take "Jane Eyre", at age 7 or 8. As the little geek that I was am, I brought my mom with me to the library to talk the librarian into letting me read what I wanted. She agreed, but I had to return the book in exactly 2 weeks, no extentions, and she quizzed me about its content after I brought it back. After that, she let me take anything I ever wanted, no comments. Good times.

I would have gotten in trouble for some of my reading if anyone had noticed I was stealing books.

From school, from friends -- my moral code rested on the apparently unassailable fact that I needed them more.

Then I found libraries, and I slowly got out of the habit. But not before I worked out how to liberate their books too.

My parents only tried to censor my reading once. I was in high school and found a Jacqueline Susann novel (from the public library) laying around the house in plain sight. When my mother saw me reading it, she was far from pleased. But when I told her she hadn't told me I couldn't read it, she stopped arguing.

Didn't learn anything I didn't already know. But I learned a few things by reading The Godfather when I was 13.

Emphatically seconding Kristin's rec on the Fadiman. Wonderful book that rang all sorts of familiar bells.

My early educational reading was the first half of Fear of Flying by Erica Jong. When I was 11, I babysat for a couple who were involved in a Scottish dance/bagpipe troupe. Every Saturday I spent about 6 hours at their house taking care of their kids who were pretty self sufficient. I found the book one day, read half of it, then, when they arrived unexpectedly (because I was totally engrossed) I stuffed it under the edge of the couch. The next Saturday it had disappeared completely.

From school, from friends -- my moral code rested on the apparently unassailable fact that I needed them more.

This explains so much.

When I was a kid, I used to like to read out loud a lot. Sometimes alone...I still read and write by sound a lot...when I finish a page of my stuff I always read it out loud afterward. Good way to catch mistakes. Of course, that's probably why my descriptions are shit...I probably neglect the visuals. Ah, "Fear of Flying" one of my best dates in high school.

The only trouble I got into with books growing up was that I read them to the exclusion of doing other things that needed to be done. My mother would tell me to clean my room, and she'd come up half an hour later to find me deep in a book. I neglected homework in favor of reading. I'd be late for work because I was busy reading. Also, I would often start reading the same book she was reading and then she wouldn't be able to find it when she wanted to read it.

But there was never, as far as I can recall, anything that I wasn't allowed to read. I learned a lot about sex from Marion Zimmer Bradley, which my mother only found out about afterwards when we rented The Mists of Avalon on tape for a long family car trip (because it was my favorite book and my parents wanted to share it with me), and it turned out to be the abridged version, with lots of plotty stuff cut but all of the sex scenes intact. Picture twelve-year-old me trying to explain to my parents that the sex scenes weren't actually the reason why it was my favorite book...

The only trouble I got into with books growing up was that I read them to the exclusion of doing other things that needed to be done. My mother would tell me to clean my room, and she'd come up half an hour later to find me deep in a book. I neglected homework in favor of reading. I'd be late for work because I was busy reading.

This was me. Of course, now replace "reading" and a'book" with "the internet" and this IS me.