I believe Haruki Murakami when he says in his book, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running(affiliate link):

“Most of what I know about writing I’ve learned through running everyday.”

The parallels of running any kind of distance and writing are very similar.

There’s a sense of monotony, a feeling of “when the hell will this end?” There’s a certain kind of mental pain involved in both actions. Running and writing don’t require too much gear: for running, shorts and shoes; writing, a pen and paper.

You can run or write anywhere.

There is something else running and writing have in common: a quiet sense of huge accomplishment when a novel or big run is done.

*          *          *

I haven’t read too much by Haruki Murakami. My first exposure to his writing came when a friend loaned me a copy of Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World: A Novel (Vintage International) (affiliate link). I liked the dreamy quality and duality of the storyline. I’ve read some Murakami short fiction, but that was it.

One evening while knocking around a bookstore, I was surprised to see What I Talk About When I Talk About Running in the athletics/running section of the store. I knew Murakami liked to run, but I didn’t know he wrote a book about running. Thumbing through the book, I noticed he also talks about writing in the book.

I’ve done a lot more writing than running in my life, but in recent years, I’ve started running here and there–it’s something I enjoy. So of course, I had to read the book.

*          *          *

This is definitely a book for runners, but if you like Murakami’s writing, or if you write and want to read a different kind of writing book, it’s worth reading. While I’ve never run a marathon (and don’t see a time in my life that I ever will), I agree with statements like:

“…writing novels and running full marathons are very much alike.”

It’s not a ground-breaking statement; I’ve heard writing compared to many hard things, including several female writers saying writing a novel is worse than childbirth. (I don’t see a time in my life that I ever give birth, either!)

Early on, Murakami tells readers that he’s not out to write pretty prose or do anything more than put down his thoughts about running and writing for himself. And that’s what I like about the book.

It’s simple.

When he describes running the reverse course of the first Marathon run, the feelings he describes are similar to the ups and downs experienced when writing a novel. When he talks about those perfect runs when the weather is just right, it is a reminder of those times when all the words come together, like a cool breeze coming down a mountain when you’re starting to overheat.

Murakami does devote a couple chapters of the book to writing. Even if you’re a writer who hates the thought of running, it’s worth reading the sections he devotes to writing and what it takes to sit alone in a room for hours and hours, isolated from loved ones–even if it’s just for reassurance that you’re not alone in feeling like this:

“No matter how much I write, though, I never reach a conclusion. And no matter how much I rewrite, I never reach a destination. Even after decades of writing, the same holds true.”

It’s always nice when you hear writers you look up to dealing with the same nagging feelings as the rest of us. That’s nothing new to me, but I find it comforting–not because it means Haruki Murakami struggles with rewrites and a sense of perfection, but in knowing that if that feeling is always there, I should begin treating writing more like a race.

We can only do the best we can do in an allotted amount of time or distance (word count), but we can’t go back and rerun a race we just finished.

The best we can do is learn from each race and do better the next time we sit down to write.

*          *          *

From the morning I started running a couple years ago after playing tennis with a friend from work, I’ve noticed my writing has improved. When I walk, I think about writing; when I run, I think about nothing.

It’s an act of mobile meditation. I don’t feel a thing until I stop, but somewhere deep in my mind, I’m working on things I don’t seem to resolve when I walk and actively think about them.

Murakami is a writer who views becoming a novelist as a not-so-healthy profession. The sitting, the isolation, the inability to never stop working in his head…he sees it as a toxic act. I wouldn’t go that far, but I know what he means when he says:

“For me, the main goal of exercising is to maintain, and improve, my physical condition in order to keep on writing novels.”

“To deal with something unhealthy, a person needs to be as healthy as possible.”

*          *          *

Whether you run or not, I think every writer can find something worthwhile in What I Talk About When I Talk About Running.

Murakami’s rise from becoming the owner of a jazz club to becoming a revered writer in Japan and around the world is inspiring, and it’s all there in the book, step by step on the pavement as he runs along creating a life where he–

“…placed the highest priority on the sort of life that lets me focus on writing.”

That’s something we should all be doing if we really want to make it writing.

In Murakami’s world, there are no excuses. If you are “too busy” to write, you are simply not a writer.

“Exerting yourself to the fullest within your individual limits: that’s the essense of running, and a metaphor for life–and for me, for writing as well.”

I recently watched Richard Nash’s talk about the future of books and publishing. (I found it here, on Booklife.)

There are some great points made in the presentation, but there were two that really stuck out:

1. The reminder that the long form narrative is a feature, not a bug.
2. Most writers — whether they know it or not — want a connection.

Feature, Not a Bug

Some writers and publishers are thinking short and gimmicky these days.

They see a report saying books sales are a little down and they think people don’t have time to read, so they must go with shorter content, or make enhanced e-books that can compete with video games and the Web. (At the same time, many people miss the line in that linked report stating that adult long form fiction saw an almost 7% increase in sales in 2009.)

Nash talks about the strength of the long form narrative, how the medium is a feature, not a bug.

I’ve seen a lot of buzz about this video for an enhanced e-book version of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland the past couple weeks. If you’ve followed this blog for any length of time, you know I’m in favor of e-books. But this enhanced e-book demo leaves me flat. There’s nothing I see in the demo that enhances the reading experience. It looks very distracting and gimmicky.

More than that, it seems to treat the long form narrative as a bug — not a feature, like something in need of repair.

There’s strength in the time it takes to read a book.

Nash talks about this and the importance of connections for writers and readers.

The Connection

Nash has seen many writers who thought being published would make them happy. He’s seen writers who seemed let down when they finally got a book on the shelves and was left with a feeling of is that all there is?

More than being published, Nash speculates, most writers really want a connection.

Nash talks about the investment of time, and what readers and writers get from the time it takes to read a book. (By treating the long form narrative as a feature, not a bug.)

Nash talks about how when you buy a book the author is “…inside a person’s head for 15 hours and you own that proxy object, that cultural proxy object that connects two people to one another in a deeper, deeper way than any other medium.”

Books connect people.

Deeply.

When I’ve heard people talk about TV shows at jobs, the talk is rarely deep. But when I’ve heard people talk about novels, there’s a much deeper connection. They don’t just talk about what happened like TV talkers — they talk about how what happened affects the world around us. They often talk about symbolism and social issues, not just who kissed whom in a grab for TV ratings.

The writer, Seth Godin, is big on Tribes. He sees importance in being the person who connects people to other people, even if that connection doesn’t directly benefit you as the leader of a group. It’s about sharing and connecting people; it’s about being altruistic and hopeful.

Writers have the ability to connect people like this in big ways.

Even if you never hear from the fans reading your writing, if you have a following that’s stuck around or grown, it’s a safe bet that it’s at least in large part because you connect people.

Readers invest more hours with one story or idea than any other medium out there. To stick with it, whether they contact the author or not, the author’s made a connection with the reader. And when a reader has invested so much time in something and they find somebody else who invested that much time, they connect and talk, sharing the experience and the ideas that came with the experience.

The act of writing is the act of creating tribes.

If you’re looking forward to having time away from your day job this weekend to write, think about how readers will connect with you and how you will connect readers when you sit down to write.

Writing can be a very powerful thing.

*          *          *

If you have some time to kill, here’s Richard Nash’s presentation:

Yesterday, The New York Times ran a story about book covers and e-books.

I know we’ve all heard that you can’t judge a book by its cover, but covers do matter.

I’ve judged more than a few books by their covers in my time (found my favorite book that way), and in almost every case the art director and cover artist tapped into the heart of the book better than the jacket copy.

Images are powerful things.

The New York Times article discusses something we lose with e-books: if everybody is reading e-books on the subway or in other public places, we don’t see the covers. Publishers lose out on free advertising, and conversations about books slide a little.

There’s no doubt that moving toward e-books comes with some huge changes to how publishers will do things. One of the biggest changes I’ve thought about, even before a good friend sent me the link to this article, is how e-books will affect cover artists.

I started out writing independent comic books. More than working in a scripting format I liked, I loved working with artists. I met one of the nicest people and best artists I know through those early days of independent comic books.

I rarely read genre fiction, but I will eventually read the book below based solely on the cover.

Covers matter to me.

The couple times I’ve bought an e-book that didn’t have the cover image from the book, I’ve felt a little ripped off. Even on my iPhone screen, I want to see cover art. The weak graphics for the Kindle are one of the reasons I never bought one. Call me shallow, but I like seeing color covers. (Fortunately, the iPad and what follows will support large, full-cover colors.)

While good artists will always find work, it is unfortunate that the work of Chip Kidd, John Picacio, and other artists and designers won’t leap out like they do when people hold physical books in their hands.

Recently, on a friend’s Facebook page, the subject of e-book pricing came up.

Right now, it seems many people think e-books are priced too high. When people hear about publishers going from the $9.99 Amazon standard for an e-book up to $14.95, they say, “That’s ridiculous!”

One can definitely make that argument; after all, the cost of editing and many other larger costs publishers bear is covered in the creation of the printed book. Theoretically, the only additional cost for creating an e-book is coding it for publication and proofing the flow in e-readers.

What many people don’t seem to understand, though, is the cost of printing and shipping a book is still just a small percentage of the overall budget of a book.

As e-books become more accepted (if they become the norm), all the effort that goes into print books (with the exception of printing, shipping and returns), will still be necessary. At that point, pricing e-books at $14.99 will be necessary for publishers to not just make money, but to make sure that the e-books they release are quality books. (Granted, we can argue what quality means when it comes to certain authors, but I’m talking about a book that is free of typos and other issues.)

I know many people are on Amazon’s side when it comes to pricing; people naturally seek out the best prices–it’s why Wal Mart is in business. But while somebody might buy a T-shirt and shorts at Wal Mart, I don’t know anybody who’d go there for a bespoke suit or an evening gown.

T-shirts and shorts are something that can be made by unskilled [and often, abused] workers for next to nothing. A bespoke suit or evening gown takes more skill to make, so it costs considerably more than clothing that will eventually be donated to a charity, or turned into rags.

Writers and artists striving for more than mediocre; agents recognizing that talent; editors and art directors shaping that talent; and publicists spreading the word involves skill and money. While there are many books published that I think are cruddy, even the cruddy books are professionally created, free of writing errors and physical errors that I’ve seen in every self-produced e-book I’ve checked out. (“‘Which is why I have yet to make it through a self-produced e-book,’ he retorted snidely while smirking fiendishly and chuckling to himself regarding his sinister sense of humor.” Yes, I’ve seen writing that bad — even worse — in self-produced e-books).

Creating 55,000 – 100,000+ words free of errors takes skill, time, and money.

The cost of printing and shipping factored into releasing books accounts for a smaller percentage of the budget than many people realize.

While I know people love cheaper, if they also want quality, they’re going to still have to pay…even for digital titles.

I have a very busy friend — he’s the Assistant Vice President of Application Architecture for a large company. Almost every morning, he’s up early for a run in his neighborhood or on his stationary bike. He has two young daughters who keep him very busy. He’s not the kind of father who puts work and other things before family, so they get a lot of his time.

This friend has many hobbies, and he finds time for them. He’s very active at church. He finds time to relax.

He has more things going on in his life than most people I know — he juggles all he has going on very well.

Obviously, somebody so busy doesn’t have time to read, right?

*          *          *

I hear a lot of people not as busy as this friend say they don’t have time to read.

“There’s just not enough time in the day to take in stories.”

While my friend has always loved reading, there have been times he didn’t have time for stories, other than the occasional television show or a movie.

In recent years, though, this friend has been taking in more stories than even me.

How does he find time? What contributed to his return to taking in stories?

Technology and a busy lifestyle.

Traffic!

*          *          *

During any given month, you can find articles that say people aren’t reading as much and articles that say reading is on the rise.

One thing you can be certain of: the way we consume content has definitely changed.

We used to tell stories around campfires. We used to paint stories on cave walls. We went to the theater. We read books. Along came the radio, and we listened to stories. We crowded movie theaters and watched stories on the big screen. Television came along, and then the Internet.

One thing that has never changed: people seek out stories.

Sure, the way we consume stories has changed, but we’ve never existed without stories.

My friend’s busy lifestyle contributed to him taking in more stories. I’m guessing he’s never read a short story in The New Yorker or Esquire, but his iPhone is full of podcasts, many of them focused on short fiction. For longer stories, there are also podcasts and audible.com. He sometimes listens to stories during his morning workout, and his commute to and from work isn’t spent listening to the same old song or talk on the radio — it’s spent listening to stories.

With e-book readers for his iPhone, when he gets a break during the day, he pulls up a book and reads.

From the time he wakes up to the time he goes to sleep, this busy friend works stories into the gaps.

*          *          *

As a writer, I can’t ignore technology. Yes, I love books. If the novel were to die tomorrow, I’d still write novels because it’s something I enjoy. But I can’t ignore all the other possible ways to write and tell stories.

This American Life, The Moth, and other story-based podcasts are loaded on my iPhone. While I prefer to read fiction (there’s something about reading fiction vs. listening to fiction for me), many people listen to fiction on their commutes. If I’m stuck in a long line or find myself with some extra time during my day, I have a library of e-books on my iPhone. There was a time I only read at night; now, despite being busier than I’ve ever been, I’m never without stories! And, consequently, I’m taking in more stories than ever.

*          *          *

There’s always been an effort to get kids reading; in part, because it’s an important part of their development, but it’s also an act of self preservation for publishing. Get a new generation reading, figure out how to keep them reading despite all the other distractions in their lives, and you have a large group to sell stories to.

One day, though, those kids will grow up to become busy adults who say they don’t have times for stories.

If my busy friend with two young daughters and a company that depends on him can find time for stories, anybody can. Granted, the way stories are consumed may be different, but with the leap from live storytelling to books, theater, radio, movies and television, people said the same things.

In my pocket, I can now carry a device that allows me to listen to stories, read books, watch theater, listen to radio, and watch movies and television.

Stories aren’t going anywhere.

As a writer, I need to realize that and adapt.

I’ve been meaning to write a review about Allison Hoover Bartlett’s The Man Who Loved Books Too Much for awhile, now.

The book was given to me as a Christmas gift; it was one of my favorite gifts received last December.

The Man Who Loved Books Too Much is the true story of John Gilkey, a thief of rare books, and Ken Sanders, a rare bookseller turned detective out to stop Gilkey and his obsession. The reporting is honest and thorough; the author presents the facts and leaves the reader to decide just how bad a man John Gilkey is.

For me, this is where the book gets very interesting. I would never steal a rare book, but I think there is a little bit of Gilkey in many book lovers. Put me near first edition Vonneguts, first editions of the books that made me want to write, or first editions of the books read to me as a child and and I’d feel their pull.

John Gilkey is your average guy who believes he was destined for greater things. You know that guy who says life didn’t deal him a fair hand? That’s John Gilkey.

Unable to attain those greater things, he begins stealing books. While Gilkey’s main reason for stealing books stems from a love of reading and obsessive character qualities, he has other reasons for becoming a thief. Gilkey hopes to amass a collection that will brand him as an erudite individual with social standing–because, obviously, to have such a wonderful collection, one must have things going for him!

On his trail is Ken Sanders, a quiet man who sells rare books. While my initial description of the book may have you thinking it’s a cat-and-mouse chase story like Catch Me if You Can, The Man Who Loved Books Too Much is never hurried, yet I couldn’t stop turning the pages.

“Some pay for their success with soaring blood pressure or dissolved marriages. He paid with jail time.”
- Allison Hoover Bartlett, from The Man Who Loved Books Too Much

What I loved most: The Man Who Loved Books Too Much is a book about what makes obsessive people tick. Allison Hoover Bartlett opens the back of John Gilkey’s pocket watch and shows us the mechanism that keeps him ticking along, seemingly unable to stop himself from stealing books. Even after serving repeated prison time, Gilkey keeps at it.

It’s that focus on obsessive psychology readers will find fascinating while reading this book. I find John Gilkey to be an extremely annoying and odious individual. I would never pretend that he is justified in what he does (Gilkey’s justifications for stealing all fall flat with me). But for as wrong as he is, I feel for him. I believe that Gilkey believes he’s protecting rare books from many of the wealthy collectors who buy them just because they can. He is a quirky, unlikeable person with a likeable trait: a love of books.

I would love to have a first edition of Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. Few times while reading have I ever felt for a character as much as a scene in the book when a list of resolutions to improve Gatsby’s life is found written in the back of a Hopalong Cassidy book. Like Gatsby, Gilkey struggles with who he is and what he wishes he were. The difference: Gatsby did it, while Gilkey seems destined to repeated failure. Desperation, sadness, and the easy way out replaces drive in Gilkey’s world.

Near the end of The Man Who Loved Books Too Much, Allison Hoover Bartlett breaks away from the story of Gilkey and Sanders and talks about the future of books. She briefly ponders the fate of physical books when e-books become widely accepted. She mentions her teenage children, and touches on their relationship with reading:

“They will have no objection to reading e-books. At the same time, though, I think that may strengthen their attachment to the physical books they do keep.”
- Allison Hoover Bartlett

I know this is true for me.

Even when e-books become the norm, there will always be people who love physical books too much. In some way, perhaps more than ever.

If you feel a need to defend physical books in a world that’s going electronic, there’s a little bit of John Gilkey inside you.

The Man Who Loved Books Too Much examines this trait in many of us who love books, while doing an excellent job giving the reader an inside look at the world of rare books and literary obsession.

In the comments of a recent post, a member of the writing group I’m in said this about e-books becoming more common:

“I suspect it will be easier to get an audience via the e-book revolution, and harder to make a career”
- Mark Felps

I’ve seen things get harder when the self publishing boom of the 90s hit comic books and things got crowded. And while I see a lot of good things as e-books become more accepted, I agree with Mark that it will be harder than ever to make a career strictly writing in the future.

In the comments of that recent post, Mark goes on to talk about the “long tail.” For those not familiar with the long tail, it’s a retailing concept for selling things that don’t have a large audience.

With music, most stores stock popular musicians, but obscure musicians often don’t see rack space. That doesn’t mean there’s not demand for obscure bands–it just means there’s not as much demand for obscure bands as there is for very popular bands.

The “long tail” is comprised of all those obscure brands. The concept is, if you can be the person being the one-stop place for the obscure bands, you can make money by focusing on a niche that larger retailers usually ignore.

The problem with the long tail as a creative individual is, unless you are the person selling all the obscure bands, you’re a handful of sales out of thousands of obscure bands. In other words, while you and a thousand other obscure bands may see 25 sales each, the person organized enough to bring all the obscure bands together sells 25,000 units. (The organizer makes a living–the obscure artists in a flooded market still don’t.)

You may only sell a handful of e-books without a publisher backing you, while the group compiling and handling the sales of all the obscure writers out there offering e-books sells enough to make a living.

*          *          *

Here’s my dream writing job: I wake up and write for several hours. I have lunch with my wife, or meet friends for lunch. I write some more, and then run errands. After dinner, maybe I edit, maybe I write, I go for a walk, or maybe I relax. I produce books on deadline and my agent sells them and gives me money. Maybe I do book signings, here and there, but in general, I write, turn it over, and let others do what they do best so I can do what I do best (write).

I’d love a flying car and world peace, too.

Things have changed.

*          *          *

It’s easy enough to make a living as a decent-enough programmer, salesperson, or manager.

To make a living writing, you have to be your best, and even then, that best may not be enough to support yourself by strictly writing stories.

Sitting down to write, selling what you’ve written, and making a living with words happens to very few people who set out for the dream.

The odds are against you; the odds have always been against you.

Yet, somehow, there have always been writers who rose to the top.

I think Mark is right, it is harder than ever to make a living writing.

But each year, some writers still do it.

*          *          *

While there are writers who do make it each year, there are more who slip from the midlist each year and have to find other ways to pay the bills.

I think Mark is right: because of a coming flood of e-books, it will be harder for a writer to make a living in the future; in fact, we’re already seeing it.

If you write fiction, many agents hope you can also write non-fiction so they have more to sell. Agents want writers who aren’t afraid of getting up in front of people and speaking. Writers are expected to spend almost as much time selling themselves as they do writing.

It’s not all bad, though.

While it may be harder than it’s been to make a living just sitting in a room and writing fiction, there are more opportunities than ever for a writer willing to work hard writing fiction, non-fiction, speaking, and doing other things only limited by creativity and drive.

What do you think: do e-books and other changes in publishing make it harder or easier for a writer to earn a living?

“Obscurity is a far greater threat to authors and creative artists than piracy.”
- Tim O’Reilly

Tim O’Reilly’s quote (often attributed to Cory Doctorow), has always rung true with me. Not that I like the thought of people taking and trading an artist’s work for free, but if people are sharing your work illegally, it’s likely that your work is good enough to make money.

In the music industry, the people who share the most music are also the people more likely to buy music, attend concerts, and buy the shirt to prove they were there. (This works for books, too: when people share books with me and I like them, I’m more likely to buy the author’s next book.)

With e-books becoming more accepted, it’s easy to be smug, angry, and even worried about the piracy of content. But anybody who has ever recorded an album to a cassette tape back in the day has committed piracy. And just like with books or file sharing, if I liked what I heard, I was more likely to buy it.

Please don’t think I’m saying I’m all for piracy, but as somebody who recorded albums I didn’t buy from friends as a teenager, I can’t be high and mighty about piracy.

And I can’t stop it.

If you put me up against 1000 people in a fight, I would hurt a couple people, but I’d lose. If I healed and went back at the 1000 people, I’d lose again. Sure, I could convince myself that I’m chipping away at my 1000 enemies, but what if their ranks continued to grow? What if the 2-3 people I hurt each battle were replaced by 20 or 30 more people?

I’d be a fool to keep attacking them day after day.

It’s a battle that I could never win, even though I’d be well within my rights to fight as hard as I can…even though them attacking me is wrong.

Now imagine if that group of 1000, instead of attacking me, told their friends how much they loved my writing. Instead of a handful of people reading my writing, maybe I’d find an armful of fans. And as word spreads, I’m more likely to gain a following and find people actually willing to pay for what I do.

Again, I’m not saying it’s right, but as somebody who probably still has old cassettes recorded from friends’ music collections, I can’t point any fingers.

*           *           *

“You don’t have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.”
- Ray Bradbury

For all the talk of piracy destroying the industry and how to stop it, there’s something far worse that every writer faces: competition with other media!

Television, the Internet, and movies satisfy the urge to have stories told to us more efficiently than books. With videogames, we can actually take part in the stories.

It’s much easier to come home after an 8-12 hour day and have a story told to us by the television than it is to make the effort to read a book. In one-and-a-half to three  hours, a movie tells the same story that may take a week (or longer) to get through as a novel.

It doesn’t matter that there are subtle things to be appreciated when one reads a novel that aren’t in movies–the reality is many people don’t have time to read. [Or have at least convinced themselves that they don't have time to read.]

Maybe there really will come a day when enough people don’t read for pleasure and the industry crumbles to nothing. It would be a sad day, but just like fighting 1000 pirates, it’s a battle I wouldn’t be able to win.

The best I can do is change with the times, try to find ways to share my love of reading with others in the hope that people keep reading, and keep doing what’s right for me: writing the best stories I can tell, whether people read them or not…

Yesterday, I wrote about giving the gift of reading.

In yesterday’s blog entry, I wrote about how my mom is one of the people who made me love reading.

We had a very rare white Christmas in north Texas. (I haven’t seen a white Christmas in 25 years, when I used to live north of Chicago.)

The snow started falling before my wife and I drove over to my mom’s apartment.

By the time we would have left my mom’s place after the festivities, the roads were icy. We decided to spend the night. (There’s no snow or ice removal in Texas, and the roads tend to be filled with Texans in big pickup trucks and people from up north all trying to prove they can drive on ice at 60 mph, so even if you can make it, why risk it?)

One of my Christmas gifts was Allison Hoover Bartlett’s The Man Who Loved Books Too Much.

The book (non fiction) is about a book thief and a bookseller of rare books who becomes a private investigator to track the thief down.

I’ve written about books surviving in a world of ebooks. It is clear that books will always be loved by some people — so much so that some people are willing to go to prison for the rare books they steal.

I’ve never stolen books, but I know the appeal of having special copies of the books that mean the world to us. The copy of Rootabaga Stories my mother read to me as a child? I have it in my possession. The signed first edition of Carl Sandburg’s The Sandburg Range that I found in a box of books my mom had stored away? It’s on a shelf nearby.

I have a tattered copy of Doris Burns’s Andrew Henry’s Meadow. Some pages are a bit moldy and torn; the dirt on the cover and some pages is the dirt from my backyard of the house where I grew up. I kept the book in the rag-tag clubhouse that my mom and some friends built as a surprise for me when I returned from visiting my father in Kansas the summer before starting fifth grade.

While it’s not the copy of Munro Leaf’s The Story of Ferdinand my mom read to me as a child, my wife and I bought a copy of the book one day so we had it. (She loved the book as a child, too.)

Were money no object, I could easily see myself traveling the world and buying books.

I would never steal them, but I can definitely see the appeal.

(Were I to steal a rare book or manuscript, I think I’d go for something by Shakespeare. What book or manuscript would you risk prison for?)

*          *          *

One of the big surprise gifts last night was a book.

Robert Olmstead’s A Trail of Heart’s Blood Wherever We Go is my favorite book.

There’s just something about it that I love; it’s so different than the books that followed from him.

I bought the first printing when it went to paperback on a whim. There was something about the blue cover of that edition that caught my eye, and the description of the book dragged me in.

My mom bought me a first edition of the hardback for Christmas.

I’ve meant to buy it in the past; I know it’s not a hard or expensive find, but that she thought about it and bought it means so much to me.

It seems fitting; she is, after all, the person who introduced me to books.

I’m a very lucky son.

]]> http://www.christophergronlund.com/blog/tjw/2009/12/25/the-gift-of-books/feed/ 5 http://www.christophergronlund.com/blog/tjw/2009/12/24/the-gift-of-reading/ http://www.christophergronlund.com/blog/tjw/2009/12/24/the-gift-of-reading/#comments Thu, 24 Dec 2009 17:01:13 +0000 Christopher Gronlund http://www.christophergronlund.com/blog/tjw/?p=670

Some of my fondest memories are of my mom reading Carl Sandburg’s Rootabaga Stories to me when I was a kid.

My sister read…a lot! It’s natural for a younger sibling to do what an older sibling does, so I became a reader, too.

One of my favorite Christmas gifts ever was when my dad bought me the complete works of Jack London.

One of the greatest gifts a person can give to somebody young is a love of reading.

Here’s a list of ways that reading has helped me; I’m sure I’m not alone:

Concentration. I was a hyper little kid. The only time I wasn’t bouncing off the walls was when I was reading. (And even then — and even to this day — l tapped my feet or shook my legs while reading.)

Once you fall into a book, everything else disappears and it becomes easy to concentrate on the story. When the concentration that comes from reading becomes a habit, it’s easier to concentrate in school, at work, or around the house.

No excuse for boredom. Until I taught myself how to juggle, I got bored very easily. Plopping down on the couch or in my bedroom with a book took me someplace else (still does). As long as there are books, there’s never a reason to be bored.

Imagination. The stories that were read to us and that we read ourselves as children were stories full of imagination. Carl Sandburg, Roald Dahl, Ray Bradbury, and so many other writers made my mind race with ideas.

The ideas weren’t always rational, organized ideas — they were the kinds of ideas that you didn’t know could exist.

They were, and still are, important ideas and ways of looking at things differently brought about through reading.

Problem solving. As a writer, most of what I do is create situations that force me to solve problems.

Very early in my life I recognized that stories are full of obstacles and characters figuring out ways to get where they wanted, no matter what was in their way. That carries over to our lives.

Whether it’s a writing problem, a work problem, or a life problem, if I haven’t already seen it solved in a book, I at least give some credit to reading for helping me solve the problems I face.

A worldly view. As children, our worlds were small. We existed in the place where we lived, a neighborhood, and maybe jaunts to other places to visit relatives. The world around us was all we knew. As children, it was a safe assumption that the rest of the world was like our little world.

Reading changed that.

Reading The Jungle Book opened my eyes to India, a faraway place that was definitely not like the neighborhood I grew up in, north of Chicago. The more I read, the more I learned about the world. I realized that not everybody had it as good as I had it. I learned that people who seemed to have more sometimes had less in many ways.

Through reading, I realized the world was a huge place, and each of those places were so unique, with its own advantages and drawbacks.

Realizing that things aren’t as black and white as they seem — that there’s a story behind every situation — makes it hard not to be compassionate.

And the world can definitely stand to see more compassion.

The ability to relax. I think it’s important for a person to not be ruled by time. Sure, if you’re working 60-120 hours a week, you’re probably making more than me, but you can’t put a price on the time lost with family and friends. Reading is one of the biggest slaps in the face to our hurried lifestyles…it says, “I have time to sit and relax.”

Sitting still is good for the body. Even if you’re reading a suspense novel, giving your mind to a story is a form of meditation.

Relaxing is one of the best gifts we can give ourselves; reading provides a way to relax, learn, and enjoy our time.

Listening skills. The act of reading encourages listening; after all, what is reading but listening to an author share information or a story?

One of the many jobs I’ve had is training people. It never ceases to amaze me how many people have a hard time sitting and listening. They assume they know what you’re about to say (even when they don’t), and they start doing something wrong. Then, when they are corrected, they become smug and do it again, over and over.

Listening is one of the most important skills a person can have. Like relaxing, it says to others that you have some control over time, that you aren’t so rushed that you ignore others. Listening says you care about people.

I’ve avoided a lot of misunderstandings that take up more time by making sure I understood what somebody was saying before doing something. I could go on and on about the advantages of listening instead of rushing and assuming.

It’s been my experience that people who started reading books at a young age listen to people later in life and have an easier time at work and home than people who are so hurried they can’t even find the time to listen to the people who matter most to them.

An active brain. One of the most asked questions to writers is, “Where do you get your ideas?”

I get my ideas from a brain that is always active. When I’m reading, something may trigger a thought that becomes an idea that becomes an element in a story or a full story. As I drive or as I just sit on the couch thinking about things I’ve read, my mind wanders and the ideas flow.

Reading is a perfect combination of emotion and structure; it’s hard not to have an active mind when you read regularly.

Active minds solve problems, work well, and know how to express feelings. Active minds make for well-rounded individuals, and people like that have better odds in life than those who have difficulty thinking on their own.

Community. While some reports show a decline in reading, there are still a lot of people out there reading stories. Even the most shy reader, when meeting another reader, can find something to talk about — a love of reading is like a membership into a very large club.

Once I find out that somebody reads, I can talk with them for hours. Even if we read totally different things, talking about books and the experiences from reading are universal.

No matter where you are, if you say, “Has anybody read anything good, lately?” in a group, you’re likely to find at least one person with whom you have something in common.

And probably more than that!

Knowledge not in textbooks. There is such an emphasis in education to teach kids how to take tests very well, but little more. Information is crammed into heads to later be forgotten. The information is enough to get a decent job later in life, but I’ve seen many booksmart people have a tough time getting by on their own.

Reading exposes people to problems, cultures, and issues textbooks ignore. This isn’t to say that textbooks are bad, but the people I’ve met who have the most going for them spent just as much time with their noses in a novel as they did in textbooks.

*          *          *

Tonight my wife and I will visit my mom for Christmas Eve. I’m sure my mom will surprise me with some cool gifts, but the greatest gift she ever gave me was a love of reading.

I wouldn’t be the person I am today without the thousands of pages my eyes have scanned over the years.

If you celebrate Christmas and haven’t bought a book for a kid this year, there’s still time to hit one of the big booksellers or independent stores for some last-minute shopping!

It’s your chance to give a gift that can last a lifetime.