I have spent the majority of my time on this blog writing about writing, so I thought I would address the most fundamental and most important part of this experience with books: reading.

I have been reading my entire life; in fact, I cannot remember a time when I did not read. And reading has informed my life in many ways, not only in terms of career but also in the joys of life itself.

Reading is one of the central pleasures of life, along with romance—with my beloved wife—, and food, the preparation and consumption of it. I am not claiming that these three things make up the totality of pleasure, but that, for me, they are the basis of it. My life with my wife is the most important to me, but then comes reading in terms of what has influenced and created my life.

I read books…