By Vicki Delany
I sometimes think that as fiction writers we don’t really
make much of a difference in people’s lives, or have any significant impact.
When I look at my own reading, I can identify a handful of
books that had an impact on me. Lord of
the Rings, The Crystal Cave, Keeping Watch by Laurie R. King. The early V.I. Warshawski books by
Sara Paretsky.. To Kill a Mockingbird (and
for that reason alone I have not, and will not read the supposed new Harper Lee
Book).
And that’s pretty much it. I like to read, I read a lot, and
I read a variety of books. But they don’t
affect my life or my way of thinking.
For that, I’d mainly list non-fiction books. The one that really had a huge impact on my
entire view of the world is March of Folly
by Barbara W. Tuchman (Many years ago I worked on a friend’s political campaign
for MP. She won, and I gave her that
book.
I write books and my goal is to entertain people and if they
get a little insight into another way of living or thinking (or, as in More Than
Sorrow, an entirely different way of seeing history) more the better.
But it’s not my goal.
Last week I had the honour of attending the Ontario Library Association’s
literacy convention luncheon. The Golden Oak Award for adult literacy book was
being given out. There were eight
shortlisted books including my Juba Good
(from Orca Book’s Rapid Reads imprint).
Each book and attending author was introduced by one of the
literacy students.
The young woman who introduced me, and talked about how much
she loved Juba Good, told us it was
the sixth book she’d read.
EVER
Think about that. She
was perhaps in her mid-twenties and in her entire life she had read SIX books. (She was, BTW, English speaking, so it wasn’t
just a matter of reading in a new language.)
Wow! I thought. I really did have an impact.
1 comment:
Wow, only 6 books to now? I can't imagine being without a book for any length of time.
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