One of my favorite topics to think about is reading, perhaps because I cannot remember a time when books were not part of my life. My parents recorded my third birthday party, and whenever I rewatch that old videotape, I notice the same thing: my excitement peaks every time someone hands me a book. The other presents are greeted politely enough, but books are a different matter altogether. The moment I unwrap one, my eyes light up.
They are picture books, of course. Yet as soon as I open them, the birthday party seems to fade into the background. While other children continue playing and the adults chat around the table, I sit down on the spot and begin turning the pages with complete concentration. The guests are left to entertain themselves however they please; I have more important things to do.
I was the kind of child who carried a book everywhere: to school, to other people's birthday parties, to the tennis club. I treated books the way some people treat emergency supplies. You never know when one might be needed.
I still do. There is always a book somewhere in my bag, waiting patiently for its moment. I carry it as insurance against boredom, delayed trains, awkward waiting rooms, and any other situation in which reality briefly proves less interesting than literature.
I have often wondered why I became such a bookworm. Part of it is probably temperament. Looking back, I always seemed naturally drawn to stories and happy to disappear into them for hours. But I also owe a great deal to my father, who possessed an extraordinary gift for storytelling.
When I was very little, we had a picture book about a naughty boy named Anton and his family. Most parents would have read the text. My father never needed it. He would glance at the illustrations and immediately begin weaving stories of his own. Anton's adventures multiplied with every reading. New characters appeared, old ones returned, unexpected twists emerged. The same pictures became the setting for hundreds of different tales.
What amazed me most was that he never seemed to run out of ideas. Whenever one story ended, another was already waiting around the corner. His storytelling reminds me a little of Shahrazad, except that his purpose was not to save his own life but to ensure that mine was never quite satisfied. There was always another adventure, another mystery, another chapter yet to be told. Perhaps that is where I learned that the greatest stories are not the ones that end neatly, but the ones that leave you longing for one more page.
I wanted to be like my father. I wanted to possess that seemingly effortless ability to conjure stories out of thin air, to have an answer for every "what happened next?" and a tale ready for every occasion. As a child, I arrived at a simple conclusion:
If stories came from books, then reading more books must surely bring me closer to that magic.
So I read.
I read greedily and without much discrimination. I read in bed long after I was supposed to be asleep. I read in cars, on trains, in waiting rooms, and in the brief pockets of time between one activity and the next. Every book felt like a glimpse behind the curtain. Somewhere in its pages, I imagined, there must be a secret that explained how stories worked and how worlds could be created with nothing but words.
Decades after that third birthday party, there is still a book in my bag and usually another five waiting on my nightstand. I still feel a small thrill when I open a new book for the first time. And whenever I do, I think of that little girl sitting on the floor amid wrapping paper, balloons, and distracted guests, utterly absorbed in a picture book.
In some ways, I have changed enormously since then. In one important way, I have not changed at all. I am still reading to find out how magic is born.
