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Learning to read
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76 Ball
Like most young children, I used environmental print to help me connect letters to meaning. My primary environment was the auto-intensive Chicago suburbs.
I was absorbing more than anyone knew. One day just before my third birthday, I ordered off a restaurant menu by myself. My parents thought I'd just memorized something, so at their request I read the entire rest of the menu aloud. -
The Snowy Day, Ezra Jack Keats
The first book I can vividly remember is this one. It has remained one of my favorite books, and it was among the first I introduced to my kids. -
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Voracious reading, mostly not books
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Where the Sidewalk Ends, Shel Silverstein
This book and The Giving Tree were the two children's books that my parents kept in the formal living room. They were cherished that much, which was a blessing and a curse. They were meant to be kept pristine, something I'm sure Shel Silverstein would not want.
Even still, the magic of this book endured even as my interest in nearly all other literature waned. -
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The downward spiral
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Sports Illustrated
My Sports Illustrated subscription lasted from 1984 until 2007. I really loved spending my Thursday afternoons reading the latest issue. For a good stretch of time in the '80s and '90s, it accounted for maybe 20% of my total reading. -
SRAs
The death of reading in my life. I can't explain how much my experience with SRAs hurt my interest in reading.
SRAs are:
(a) busywork,
(b) uninteresting,
(c) only technically related to quality reading,
(d) all of the above. Maybe SRAs have changed in the last 25 years. They better have. But at least in 1985, the answer was most certainly (d). -
The Baseball Encyclopedia
Is it reading to peruse tables and tables of numbers? I loved The Baseball Encyclopedia almost as much as I now love baseball-reference.com. My local library rarely had this book on the shelf, since it was usually next to my bed. -
The Far Side Gallery 2, Gary Larson
This was the first book I ever read cover-to-cover on the day I got it. I'm pretty sure I read it through two more times before winter break was through. Funny, funny, funny. -
The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger
Holden isn't so different from me. He knows the phonies won't amount to anything. I'm an outsider, man, and so am I. An individual, just like the millions of other kids who loved this book.
This was the only book I actually remember reading in high school. -
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Finding academic value
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Affirmative Action and Justice, Michel Rosenfeld
This textbook about justice was my favorite book in college. Weird, I know, but it was the best expository book I'd ever come across, and the first textbook that I could unequivocally say helped me gain a huge amount of knowledge about a topic. -
Phenomenology of Spirit, G.W.F. Hegel
I was a Political Philosophy major in college, and Hegel was the most interesting figure to me. His writing demonstrated the relevance of philosophy to everyday life. -
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Reading for its own sake
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The Norton Reader, 7th Edition
After college, I went to the Czech Republic to teach English for a short while. I spent my weekends in Prague, but my home and my job were in the countryside, far from anyone with more than beginners' English. This book, a one-month-after-publication Sports Illustrated subscription and my Discman were my connections to English-language culture. It was a weird time in my life, but it gave me exposure to some great writing. -
S, M, L, XL, Rem Koolhaas and Bruce Mau
The book of the Millenium era in architecture. 1376 pages, weighs a ton and is incredibly valuable. I just checked, and a first edition like mine is going for about $400 on eBay. Still too cool to sell, though. It's the epitome of a coffee table book. -
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The bookworm among the makers
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On Growth and Form, D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson
In architecture school, I was the nerd as well as the liberal artist. I could never limit myself to a single subject, so I was always reading weird stuff. This book obsessively documents the patterns of the natural world, and it has some of the finest line-drawn illustrations you'll ever see. Classmates often avoided me when deadlines approached; I had a knack for being a great distractor. -
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, Dave Eggers
The title is tongue-in-cheek, but it's accurate. I loved - LOVED - Might Magazine, the short-lived humorous magazine Eggers edited when I was in college. It was strange to find him utilizing his unique voice to write such serious matter. Beautiful. -
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Distracted, frequent reading
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The Omnivore's Dilemma, Michael Pollan
This book was right up my alley. I really enjoy the journalistic tone that Pollan and Michael Lewis use in their work, and this hit me just as I was asking a lot of questions about food. A great book that turned into a phenomenon. -
The Baby Book, WIlliam Sears
Is there an event that can more drastically change one's reading habits that the arrival of a kid? It is said that they don't come with manuals, but that doesn't mean there aren't manuals available. -
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Parenting and coursework trump leisure reading
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Big Red Barn
I think Margaret Wise Brown is an awful author. This book is a perfect example of her shaky craft. No rhythm, but an admittedly calming tone. Of course, my older son fell in love with it, and I had to read it every day for a year. -
The Snowy Day, Ezra Jack Keats
The first book I bought for my son, and one that relaxes me every time I read it. At the risk of sounding like a curmudgeon, there aren't many kids' books that rise to this level anymore. -
The Giving Tree, Shel Silverstein
A book that is squarely in my older son's Zone of Proximal Development right now. It's a beautiful, simple story that invites discussion about love. -
Reading Essentials, Regie Routman
With limited time, these days my reading materials mostly fit in one of three categories:
1. Reading for classes
2. Reading with my kids
3. Reading about child development
