WHY I READ

In the summer of 1968 I took a fiction writing class at the University of Montana. I attended summer school there to help gain my 24 credits so I could get a permanent teaching certificate in Pennsylvania. At the time I was a junior high school teacher.

The fiction class was being taught by James Crumley, who had just received a reported $100,000 for his first novel, One to Count Cadence. It was my introduction into both writing fiction and reading fiction. Crumley, who summers in Missoula, has become one of the nation's better mystery writers.

Montana is also where I learned of James Grady, the author of Six Days of the Condor. He was a senior in the journalism program at the University when I was there. His career has included stints with muckraker journalist Jack Anderson and an attempt at a muckraking column of his own. Now he's a full-time novelist. I have read most of his novels, including his latest, Thunder, which John Grisham has written the foreword. Even though Grady writes about the CIA and spies mostly, his stories often have Montana links. I have also read most of the Grisham books, too, and my younger son spent the summer reading the Grisham series. I gave him Thunder to read and to make him a James Grady reader.

I also enjoy science fiction, especially books by Ray Bradbury.

Many of my readings have ties to my family or to things that have happened to me. For example, my wife learned of an acquaintance, Sally Kemp, who had written a first novel, and my wife bought the book, Matinee. The book was about a woman who enjoyed horror movies and spent Wednesday afternoons at the matinee while her husband was away on business trips. The plot revolves around her being kidnapped at the matinee and the horrors and nightmare of that event. It was a noble first effort.

While in Spokane, I took a writing course from Terry Davis, author of Vision Quest, which was made into a movie and filmed in Spokane.

Fiction is my favorite reading, but I also enjoy nonfiction and have read Walter Cronkite's A Reporter's Life and other biographies.

My older son is interested in mathematics and Christianity, so I bought him The Bible Code by Michael Drosnin. I read it before he returned home from Florida this summer. I am still unsettled about the book's thesis.

I guess that's what I enjoy most about reading -- that I can get absorbed completely. For the duration of the book, I am immersed into someone else's lives, thoughts, situations or apologies. I can argue, be amazed, try to solve or question the writer's views, images or writing. I guess its this mental sparring that I like best about reading.