WHY I READ

In one way, what I like to read hasn't changed much since the day I was introduced to Dick and Jane.

I grew up reading the Chip Hilton series of sports books by Clare Bee, a former coach. Chip Hilton was the all-American letterman in football, basketball and baseball who seemed to speak only when necessary, was shy around girls and usually, but not always, found a way to lead his high school team to the state championship.

Kids today want to be Tiger Woods. I wanted to be Chip Hilton.

I also read Tom Swift books back then, but science couldn't compete with sports.

As an English major in college I was supposed to read a lot of literature, but at that time I preferred Neil Young, Joni Mitchell and Jackson Browne song lyrics. I can quote "Blue" but not "Moby Dick."

Now my measure of a book is whether it changes the way I look at the world. Peter Matthiessen's "The Snow Leopard" is such a book. Jane Roberts' Seth books belong in that category, too, along with Annie Dillard's "A Pilgrim at Tinker Creek."

Newspapers, news magazines, golf magazines and movie magazines also are on my preferred reading list.

I still like to read sports books, but now they're books about golf. Bobby Jones wasn't only a great golfer, he was a masterful writer. Michael Murphy's "Golf in the Kingdom" is a classic, and Fred Shoemaker's "Extraordinary Golf" changed the way I experience the game.

I also read books about spirituality and human growth. My copy of "The Pathwork of Self-Transformation" by Eva Pierrakos is dog-eared and crinkled from water.

I like to read in the bathtub.

Although I'm currently engrossed in Charles Frazier's "Cold Mountain," reading fiction is a rarity for me. The truth has always seemed more interesting.