Lit. List Archives - Hannah and HusbandHannah and Husband

On many afternoons this summer, I have been found on our front porch reading. As I wrote before, I’m trying to focus more–turning off the distractions and just concentrating on the words of the author. One of my favorites of late? Storyteller: The Authorized Biography of Roald Dahl written by Donald Sturrock.

When I was little I didn’t read much Roald Dahl. My mother didn’t want the attitudes of the characters to rub off on her 7 year old bibliophile that already had an attitude problem. But last year I started reading a Dahl book every few months: First, Matilda. Fantastic Mr. Fox. The Giraffe the Pelly and Me.

“From then on, Matilda would visit the library only once a week in order to take out new books and return the old ones. Her own small bedroom now became her reading-room and there she would sit and read most afternoons, often with a mug of hot chocolate beside her…
It was pleasant to take a hot drink up to her room and have it beside her as she sat in her silent room reading in the empty house in the afternoons. The books transported her into new worlds and introduced her to amazing people who lived exciting lives. She went to Africa with Ernest Hemingway and to India with Rudyard Kipling. She traveled all over the world while sitting in her little room in an English village.”
-excerpt from Matilda by Roald Dahl

Do you like to read? I used to read under the covers with a flashlight when I was little and always carried a book in my bag. Then, in high school, I got tired of being told what to read, as I suppose happens to a lot of people, and gave up the practice almost entirely. Then, last summer, a switch was flipped again and suddenly I love opening the pages of a book and experiencing a world completely separate from mine. Personally, I prefer reading children’s literature or biographies. But regardless of what one likes to read, the essentials are always the same, right?