“There is no such thing  
as a child who  
hates to read;  
there are only children  
who have not found  
the right book.”  
Frank Serafini

Mark Twain once said, “The man who does not read has no advantage over the man who cannot read.” As much as I hate to admit it, for much of my life, I was that man.

I have no doubt that I was introduced to books at a very early age. The image above depicts my brother, Tom, reading to my sister, Cathy, and me in 1957. Books were a part of our lives. My mother regularly took us to the Parkside Library on Taraval Street in my childhood. There I would have the opportunity to pick out books to take home and read. My favorites were anything having to do with Curious George. I was constantly entertained by the mischievous little monkey and the man in the yellow hat.

When I began elementary school, we did a fair amount of reading out of anthologies we simply referred to as “readers.” I’m sure I enjoyed many of the stories we read, but for some reason I didn’t develop a love of reading. Through my middle school years, I have no recollection of reading books for school or for pleasure.

My acceptance letter to Saint Ignatius High School in 1968 included a required summer reading list. There were five books on the list which we were expected to have read before arriving for class on the first school day in September. The books were: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Treasure Island, Old Man and the Sea, The Caine Mutiny, and The Call of the Wild. I read them. Much to my surprise, I enjoyed reading them.

In my freshman English class, one of the first books we were assigned to read was The Hobbit. I remember making an attempt to read the book, but I didn’t enjoy it at all, and, in the end, I don’t recall ever finishing the book. From that point on, reading was never anything more than an unpleasant task for me.

I did a fair amount of required reading during my years at Santa Clara University. Two books, in particular, stand out as having impressed me: Markings, by Dag Hammarskjöld and Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl. I’m sure there were others, too, but these two books left a lasting impression. I don’t recall reading any books for pleasure during those years.  

It wasn’t until my adult years that I truly embraced a love for reading. Most of the books I read at first were books which had been recommended by friends — or my Mom, who had become an avid reader herself. Some of these books include McCarthy’s Bar (Pete McCarthy), Breakfast with Buddha (Roland Merullo), Tuesdays with Morrie (Mitch Albom), The Shack (William Paul Young), and The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho). I enjoyed all these books immensely. For the first time in my life, I was reading for pleasure.

Other books I’ve enjoyed have been written by local authors, some of whom are now friends: The Measure of a Man (Jerrold Shapiro), 20 Gifts of Life (Hal Urban), The Millionaires Cruise (Don McPhail), Your Personal Renaissance (Diane Dreher), Beautiful Boy (David Sheff), Bird by Bird (Anne Lamott), and Murder at Beach Chalet (Paul Totah).  

All of these books, and so many more, have helped me to realize the wisdom in the words of novelist Elizabeth Hardwick who wrote, “The greatest gift is the passion for reading. It is cheap, it consoles, it distracts, it excites, it gives you knowledge of the world and experience of a wide kind. It is a moral illumination.’’