In a recent autobiographical essay, “Sidestepping the Known”, published in the Cordite Poetry Review, the Australian experimental writer and new media artist Mez Breeze recollects a formative experience from her early years:
‘When I was in my late primary school years, I was shunted into an accelerated reading program… As part of this program it was decided that I should be given special privileges in order to join the primary public library… I grabbed the first three books located there [that I could reach], all by an author I hadn’t ever heard of: Brian Aldiss. The section I had stumbled into was Science Fiction. This simple act of selecting those books [written in a genre that would soon become an enduring favourite] shifted something. My life trajectory tilted…’
What are your first/most formative memories of reading and encountering books? Was it in a library, a bookshop, or exploring the bookshelves at home? You can send me entries by email ([log in to unmask]) or post them as comments to a special page I've set up on my blog: http://edwardpicot.com/blog/first-experiences-of-reading/.
- Edward Picot
http://edwardpicot.com - personal website
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