Three thanks for a summer of reading

Submitted by a Ledding Library Patron

First… Thanks to the Friends of Ledding Library (FOLL) for providing the books, prizes and other “trimmings” for the Children’s Summer Reading Program. I’ve heard that it was again a huge success in numbers and in the enthusiasm of the kids who participated. Over 2,600 kids and teens have been involved and each received a gift book made possible by FOLL.  Having spent decades enjoying books, I am sure these programs, so generously supported by FOLL, will help others begin their own life long love of reading.

Second… More thanks to FOLL for their support of the Adult Summer Reading Program.  This support is on a different scale, as so many of us don’t need to be enticed to read, but rather FOLL subsidizes the weekly and “grand” prizes that (randomly) acknowledge successful completion of a chosen set of books. At the 2/3’s mark of the summer, another casual inquiry revealed that exactly 2/3’s of a thousand books had been read by close to 125 adult patrons participating this summer.

And lastly, thanks to the librarians of Ledding Library who put together the Adult Summer Reading Challenge. This year’s challenge was to choose and read at least one book from all 10 major classifications of the “Dewey Decimal System.”  

I immediately thought, “I can’t do that.” Or maybe it’s more accurate to say, “I am not interested in doing that.”  I confess: there are probably sections of the Dewey Decimal shelving that I had never even visited; after all these decades, I already know what my reading interests are.

But the idea was still intriguing enough to at least scan the non-fiction shelves and see.  See what?  Well… it turned out there is a whole range of potentially interesting subject matter I had never considered.  Plus some that were already on my maybe-one-day-I’ll-get-around-to-reading-something-about-that list.  I even discovered a couple of qualifying books in my home library that I had never been interested enough to take off the shelf.  Suddenly it was, “Hey, I think I can do this.”

I won’t catalog my entire junket through the Dewey Decimal system.  But after many years of wondering about statistics and their overwhelming presence in our society, I finally took the plunge and read an introductory book on the subject written for those who are simply curious, but not intending to become statisticians.  On the other hand, I ended up reading about Iceland because of a long term dream of one day traveling there; in the course of that reading I became aware of an ancient Icelandic Saga with a small chapter that has fired my imagination of what might really have happened 1,300 years ago.

I always have had an interest in Greek mythology and culture; yet reading a book on the history, development and importance of the Greek alphabet made real to me the lasting influences of that language on modern English.  In contrast, I never knew any basic information about Taoism, yet suspected it was important to the development of Chinese culture; that void has now been filled with a delightful introduction to the basic principles of this spiritual path which help ground an individual in a healthy outlook on life and the challenges confronted every day. This outlook and response was further enhanced by a witty excursion into the realm of etiquette — not a prim and proper white-glove-with-book-on-head lifestyle guide but rather a practical and down to earth exemplar on dealing with potentially awkward situations without being impolite to others.

I made a quick tour of the history, need and isolated circumstances of the Fire Lookout Towers in the forests of Oregon. I enjoyed a multi-faceted excursion into American sports through the lens of a thoughtful contemplation of “what if” just one thing had occurred slightly differently; one of the chapters will reverberate for a long time as I consider one man’s courage in standing for what he felt was morally important.  

There were other books, but I did promise this would not be a catalog listing.  

To date, I haven’t won any of the weekly prizes provided by FOLL for Ledding Library to give to it’s successful reading patrons.  And by now, I know, statistically, the odds of me winning the overall Dewey Decimal Completion prize dwindle with each passing week as other patrons also complete their journey through the ten major classifications. The idea of winning the weekly or grand prize is enticing, but that alone is not enough. 

For those prizes pale in comparison with all I gained by reading what I might never have taken off the shelves without this challenge.  And I am pretty sure that if I am ever at a remote fire lookout tower and I encounter someone I never met before, I have a better chance of striking up an interesting conversation on a wider range of subjects — without being inadvertently discourteous to the other person, whether they are Icelandic, an Ancient Greek, or a sportsperson.