I don't recall really liking to read growing up. I still struggle to read. While I enjoy it when I really get into a book and commit to reading it, it isn't on my list of things to do - unless I put it there. I have made reading goals the past few years since finishing my graduate studies. This has helped to keep my mind active.
I do remember enjoying the book To Kill a Mockingbird growing up. It seems like it was part of the curriculum in junior high. I also read a book in junior high about some guy that was getting hunted down in a desert. I can't ever remember the name of it, but it was a good book. Another book I enjoyed reading was Dune. While I don't remember much about these books, I do recall enjoying them.
I don't recall many of the books I was required to read in high school, but I do remember actually starting to like English and it becoming one of my favorite subjects my senior year of high school. I had always followed my older brother and sister's footsteps in taking advanced classes that qualified you for college credit, if you passed a test a the end of the curriculum. These ended up being some of the least exciting classes for me and I did the worst in them because I had no motivation to study. I didn't learn much in those classes. So, I decided my senior year to drop the advanced classes and take the general English class. Ms. Olsen was my teacher. She was an older, never been married lady that really took an interest in her students. In her class, she read Don Quixote to us. Yes, we were seniors in high school being read to. It was in this class that I really made a connection with a teacher and wanted to learn. I had always enjoyed and done well in school, but Ms. Olsen helped us understand why we were learning and made it personal. She has always been on my list of favorite teachers.
In college, I decided to study communications. It was in an interpersonal communications class that I met the second teacher that I really connected with. He was a short, interesting fellow that described himself as a minimalist. He wore one of two changes of clothes and the same sandals every day to class. He mentioned all of his travels and we made some connection as he had interests in Buddhism and Taoism. In our class we had various lessons from texts of the Dahli Lama and the Tao De Ching. I took an interest in these text and was able to go a presentation by the Dahli Lama in Salt Lake City at the University of Utah and read the Tao De Ching.
It was in this class that we read the book Tuesdays with Morrie. Looking back at it now, one reason I may have loved this class - and this book - was that the professor could have shoved all kinds of information down our throats and tested us on it, like so many professors in college do. Instead, he gave us a short book about interpersonal communication from which we had a lesson each week. But, the focus of our class was on this book Tuesdays with Morrie. It was a short novel written about a man's interaction with one of his college professors as he slowly lost body function and eventually died from Parkinson's disease. The professor wanted to teach about life by talking about his experiences while he was dying. While the book may only be 200 pages long and could really be read in a few afternoons by a slow reader like myself - or in one afternoon by a fast reader like my wife Kelly - we took the whole semester and picked apart this book to learn about interpersonal communication. It was a great class. I've read this book over and over throughout my life as well as a few other books that the author wrote. It is one of my favorites.
As lame as it may sound, I enjoy reading the Bible and the Book of Mormon. While they are great books to dive into and study the doctrines of Jesus Christ's gospel that are contained therein, I enjoy reading them as a storybook. As I am learning from other books that I now get to read with my two boys, there is so much we can learn from stories. I believe that if we are trying to do what is right and are looking for answers to our questions, our Father in Heaven will inspire us through the stories that others had written down. While we naturally go to the scriptures for these types of answers, I have found answers to my questions in books that range from the children's book Where the Wild Things Are to Tuesdays with Morrie and theTao De Ching to the Book of Mormon and the Bible.
While all of these books have provided some sort of inspiration to me, I believe the Bible and the Book of Mormon to be the actual words of our Father in Heaven passed down from generation to generation to teach his children his plan and desires for them while here on Earth.
Rather than sitting down with a novel, I enjoy reading books that teach me about something. A few years ago I read one book a month. Half of those books that I read were biographies of people ranging from the great tennis player Andre Agassi some of the founding fathers of the United States. Most of the books I enjoy or self-help books put in a story format - similar to Tuesdays with Morrie, though that author writes his books from some sort of true story. I just finished reading the biography of Steve Jobs, the first of six books that I have a goal to read this year. It was a great book and I enjoyed reading about this crazy teenager took some ideas he and his buddy had and made one of the most iconic brands in history with it.
I'm working to enjoy reading more. It hasn't ever been one of my high priorities. However, when I make it a priority, I enjoy getting sucked away into another person's view of life or into another world created by an author.
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