The significance of reading has changed for me over the years; or to be more precise, new reasons for reading have settled over earlier ones in sedimentary layers.  This week I plan to summarise various phases of my reading life (though I’m happy to chat about any aspect of reading or writing).

Like many bookish people I was read to as a child – in my case by my mother.  From the beginning I experienced reading as an act of love, and a passion for story naturally followed.  (It’s not surprising, perhaps, that love of one kind or another is a central theme of the vast majority of novels.)  A favourite book of mine from those days was The Sailor Dog by Margaret Wise Brown, which begins with the following immortal words:

      “Born at sea in the teeth of a gale, the sailor was a dog.  Scuppers was his name.” 

On the corresponding page, Scuppers is depicted in a mackintosh and rain-hat at the helm of a sloop in ferocious seas (apparently whelped and weaned and sent straight up on deck).  These days, I love dogs as avidly as books, and my mother has a Labrador retriever named Scuppers.

In a daring narrative move, the second page of The Sailor Dog recounts the hero’s puppyhood in a single sentence: “After that he went to live on the land”.  The rest of the story tells of Scuppers’ adventures as he reclaims his maritime heritage, and it occurs to me now that my subsequent reading – and for that matter my writing – is in part a search for fleeting moments of tenderness such as those experienced during my first contact with books.

“Born at sea in the teeth of a gale…”

Author with faithful hound, Meddles