[sho_hn]

I was not read to as a child, but I was pretty good at reading from an early age and grew to love it. Adult life is busy and many other activities compete for my attention now, but I still manage to finish around 10-20 books a year. This lower bound is not impressive to any serious, habitual reader, but I'm happy I manage to keep it up.

I think what the trick for me:

- My parents read regularly, so it just was a normal part of life in my eyes.

- My parents' siblings would gift me volumes of children's book series for birthdays and holidays. I'd look forward to getting the next book in a series for months, and it was a big exciting event for me.

- Adults were willing to discuss the books I read with me (and sometimes humor me by reading one), so I got recognition from them for what I was doing, and learned to connect over books. If a book was important to me, other people were willing to take my feelings seriously. Being rooted in a book made them legitimate.

- My dad was not a spend-y sort of person, but once a year for Christmas, he'd rifle through a book club catalog with me and let me order more or less any book I wanted. This was exciting, and we got tons of random books at home filling the shelves.

- Access to books, i.e. those full shelves. Bored to tears on a rainy day? My father would tell me to pick a book.