My sophomore year of the so called advanced class of 36 so called smart kids, read and studied the Iliad.
The instructor was the drama teacher coach. She made it interesting and got some of us to try out for school plays.
I can’t say that in spite of her, studying/reading the Iliad ever helped me in any way.
My mother was a reading teacher and basically told me to read it, get a good grade and move on.
My Dad like many men at that time had gone to school for 8 years and then went to work for the rest of his life. Most of his reading after that was what he wanted to read like:
He loved Zane Grey, Jack London and re read the Old Man and Sea time after time. He read the local newspaper which was a good one. He borrowed my granddad’s condensed Books to read.
He wore out 2 copies of the Old Man and Sea, and he was on his big print copy when he died.
My Mother in spite of being a reading teacher, said to find writers, you enjoy reading and try to read a new book or re
read one a month after college. She said to try new authors, however if they didn’t get you hooked in the first couple of chapters or 30-50 pages, move on to another book. There was nothing wrong with reading 2-3 books during the same time period, just vary the reading. I’m currently reading 3 books.
She followed that regimen until she died at 86. The last four years of her life, she lived in a good retirement with a good library. She became the librarian and got the other ladies to list the books they kept in their room and to loan them to people who wanted to read them. She donated her many books to that library. Once a month, she led a group of readers in their little bus to the local library to check out their books. She was a volunteer reader at libraries and schools for most of her retired life.
My wife, oldest son, and a granddaughter read dozens of books in a month or two. The 3 of them are speed readers with incredible recall. Now, that my wife is retired, she gets about 6 books a week to read at our local library. All 3 of them have electronic readers/kindles and they prefer reading from real books.
Family reading....
Your brief story about reading was so interesting. The hidden backgrounds of so many FReepers go past us unknown but contain facets of the American Way of Life that we must hold onto.
Thanks for sharing that with us.