glorycloud's Diaryland Diary

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reading history

It is 1:47 PM Wednesday April 30, 2014. I was reading a book titled, �Bookstore: The Life and Times of Jeannette Watson and Books & CO.� by Lynne Tillman. As I was reading this book I started to remembering the history of how I got into reading books. What encounters have I had over my 61 years with books and reading books. I was trying to remember the first time I was exposed to reading materials.

I remember back in the early 60�s living in Norfolk Virginia and getting in the mail a Boy Scouts magazine in the mail. I also remember reading as a boy Mad magazine. I do not know if I was into comic magazines as a boy.

I grew up among people who did not read to me. I do not remember my mother or my step-fathers reading or having books. I do not believe my step-fathers or my mother went beyond High School. I do not even know if my mother finished High School.

I do remember reading as a boy the Bible on my own. I do remember as a boy checking out books from Library Book mobiles. I also remember reading encyclopedias that one could buy one volume at a time at grocery stores. I remember sitting on the floor at grocery stores and reading encyclopedias. I do not remember owning a set of encyclopedias as a child.

I remember when I was nine years old my grandfather sending me books as gifts. I have still today two Bibles given to me by my grandfather.

I remember as a boy looking at books whenever I came across them. Books have always fascinated me.

As a boy I was exposed to pornographic magazines. My mother was divorced a couple of times and she has boyfriends that kept in their homes Playboy magazines. I do not remember reading Playboy magazines, but just looking at the photos of nude women. I think around this time I was in my early teens.

The first novel I remember reading was novel my mother bought titled, �The Carpetbaggers� a novel by Harold Robbins (published in 1961). I bought at a used book sale awhile back a copy of this novel by Harold Robbins.

In my early teens I went through a period where I stole paperbacks from grocery stores. I would steal paperbacks and then find some isolated spot unusually in a vacant lot and read. I would not take the stolen books with me but hide them someplace. I think I only did this when I was in Middle School (around 13 or 14 years old). I had no money to buy books so I shoplifted books. I am shame to confess, but as a teenager I did do a lot of shoplifting. I would steal books and candy. (when I got older and had no money I would steal pens so as to write).

I think I really got into reading books when I got into my High School years (1968-1970). In High School (Richmond California) I was really into books. I started hanging out at the Richmond City Public Library where I was always checking out books. I still had no money for books. I do remember my first foster parent Maria having a small library of books that I would read. I would though have to say in High School I was more into sex, drugs and Nature. I did though in High School read a ton of stuff but not deeply. I still have some books from my High School days.

The summer after graduating from High School is when the Lord Jesus saved me (Summer of 1970). After I completed High School the following year I went to Contra Costa Jr. College for a year. I used the colleges library a lot and I also started reading and studying the Bible. I would say the first five years of my Christian life I read and studied the Bible mainly. The Christian circles I was in with were mostly into emotional Christianity and not intellectual Christianity. I do not remember reading many Christian books the first five years of my Christian life.

Around 1974 or 1975 I was living and working at a Christian commune in Northern California and at this commune was a large collection of Reformed books. I remember mainly reading C. H. Spurgeon�s three volume Commentary on the Psalms. Years later I bought for myself Spurgeon�s three volume commentary set on the Old Testament Psalms of David.

To make a long story short around 1976 I started reading Reformed or Calvinistic literature. I still had no money to buy books but the church I was a member of had a large library of Reformed and 17th century English Puritan reprints which I read. Also I discovered in the San Francisco Bay Area where seminaries that loaned out books. Back in those days I would spend time in seminaries reading old books by the Puritans and other Reformed writers like Thomas Boston, Thomas Goodwin, John Owen and on and on it goes. I now have in my own library the writings of Boston, Goodwin and Owen.

I basically read only Reformed Puritan literature from 1976 till the present. Well I think I stopped reading all the time Calvinistic literature when I got laid off from my last job back in June 2007. When I was working I only had mental energy to prepare for my Adult Sunday School class (which I taught for 10 years) and personally devotional reading. Since 2007 I have mainly read whatever interests me as a Christian.

I should do some back tracking and mention that after leaving the Richmond Rescue Mission in 1976 I attended in Grand Rapids Michigan Reformed Bible College. I met my wife Carol while a student at RBC and she would buy me books while we were dating. (Carol and I knew each other only six months before we got married. On May 19th we will celebrate being married 35 years.)
While in college I bought a lot of books and have continued to buy books till the present day.

After graduating from Reformed Bible College we moved to Jackson Mississippi where I attended Reformed Theological Seminary. Throughout seminary I read a ton of stuff and continued to add to our library. Like I wrote earlier during these years of college and seminary I mainly read Reformed Theology and the Bible. Now I did buy while in seminary some secular book but not many. I do remember while in seminary buying for example �Naked Lunch� by William Burroughs. (back in those seminary days Beat books where hard to find new)

Since getting laid off from work back in June 2007 and leaving the visible church I have gone back to reading not only Christian literature but the books I read when I was a young man. A couple of years ago my wife and I got into going to used book sales and now into visiting thrift stores. I now read all over the map. I now fill my days reading books and writing in my paper diary.

2:48 p.m. - 2014-04-30

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