WHY I READ

My reading preferences have evolved over the years -- fiction and fantasy have been supplanted by biographies and articles dealing with political and social issues.

My parents were avid readers, mostly of newspapers and magazines, and my passion for the written word dates to the early 1960s.

In grade school I read the required material, but at some point I launched off into paperback books that I would read in my room at night.

"The Hound of the Baskervilles," a Sherlock Holmes thriller by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, was one of the first books I remember reading, or devouring. I read several other Sherlock Holmes mysteries along with some Tarzan adventures by Edgar Rice Burroughs. I was also heavily into comic books during my pre-teen years. The Green Hornet, The Flash and, of course, Superman, littered my bedroom floor.

As I entered my teens my comic book tastes turned to "Mad Magazine," much to the chagrin of my parents. It was during these years that the James Bond movies began hitting the big screens, and I read all 13 of the Bond books written by Ian Fleming.

During high school I read what was required in my English and literature classes. During study hall my fancy turned to "nonrequired" tomes, i.e, the Hells Angels in California and the German Blitzkrieg during World War II. I read the daily newspaper at home in the evenings. I also read "Time" and "Newsweek," but don't any more because of the liberal/socialist slant of the contents.

In college I hit the books with a bang. For class assignments I read, among others, "The Catcher In The Rye," by J.D. Salinger," "The Possessed," by Fyodor Dostoevsky, "Doctor Zhivago," by Boris Pasternak, "Steppenwolf," by Hermann Hesse, "Farenheit 451," by Ray Bradbury and the almost unfathomable "Moby Dick," by Herman Melville.

But the fun stuff was what was circulating among the students in the dorms, frat houses, apartments and crash pads. This was the early '70s and we had discovered the brilliant and fantastical writings of an old professor from England, J.R.R. Tolkien. Bilbo Baggins came to life in "The Hobbit" and continued his adventures among the elves, dwarves, men and sorcerers in Middle-earth in Tolkien's trilogy "The Lord of the Rings." Frodo, Sam Gamgee, Gandalf and Sauron were the central characters. It was escapist fantasy at its best.

During college, while the war raged in Vietnam, I also read books by Ernest Hemingway, Jack Kerouac, Ken Kesey, Joseph Conrad, John Steinbeck, Friedrich Nietzsche, Norman Mailer, Truman Capote and a little ditty by the infamous Abbie Hoffman: "Revolution For the Hell Of It!" And Jerry Rubin, like Hoffman one of the Chicago Seven -- a group of zealous social revolutionaries and anti-war protesters -- wrote "Steal This Book," I read it; don't ask if I stole it.

After college I did a two-year stint in the Army and was stationed in Germany. At the base library I discovered the writings of F. Scott Fitzgerald. A contemporary of Hemingway in the Flapper Era of the Roaring 20s, Fitzgerald wrote highly descriptive prose; his often tragic characters were treated to delicate doses of irony. Some of his books were (and I've read them all): "The Great Gatsby," "The Beautiful And Damned," "This Side of Paradise," and "Tender Is The Night."

In more recent years I've read the biographies of James Cagney, Humphrey Bogart, Harry Truman, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, Errol Flynn, Stonewall Jackson, Jim Morrison and the autobiography of, excuse me but, Dennis Rodman.

Currently I read a lot of political magazines and newsletters from conservative groups and organizations. And I'm on page 153 of a book written by talk radio host Ken "The Black Avenger" Hamblin. It's called "Pick A Better Country."

Reading can be quite the adventure.