For the Love of Books
by James R. Preston
"Do not read, as children do, to amuse yourself, or like the ambitious, for the purpose of instruction. No, read in order to live." - Gustave Flaubert
You love books. If you didn’t love books and stories you wouldn’t be here.
I love books, too, always have. I think we should take a break from studying the art & craft of writing, c’mon, how about a few minutes spent telling stories of our early experiences with books and reading? Don’t worry— I have a purpose in mind. We’ll get to that.
My Earliest Books
I started collecting books when I was nine years old, really. Some relative gave me The Hardy Boys: The Tower Treasure and I was hooked. All at once I realized, looking at the fly leaf, that there were other books about Frank and Joe and their pals.
At once I started marking the list on the dust jacket to keep track of the ones I owned. When my birthday arrived with five dollars from my grandmother I begged my mother to take me to the Robinson’s department store so I could hit their book section.
My next round of authors
But it hasn’t always been fun, oh, no!
My cousin introduced me to Ian Fleming and from there I went on to Donald Hamilton and Matt Helm. (If you’ve had the misfortune to sit through any of Dean Martin’s Matt Helm movies please forget them and find the books. A singing spy! Gag me!)
Anyway, the Matt Helm paperbacks were where the trouble started. I went to the drug store in El Segundo, CA where I bought many of my paperbacks and found a new thriller called Murderer’s Row. The cover had a young woman in a party dress wading out of the surf with one strap down over her shoulder.
The old guy behind the counter took one look at her, pushed the book back toward me as if he didn’t like touching it, and said, “Oh, you don’t want that.” I was in junior high so I didn’t understand; I just started going on “This is a new Donald Hamilton and I think he’s as good as Ian Fleming, and the stories are about a spy named Matt Helm and” and on and on. (I didn’t understand that he thought I was buying something like Topless Hotties from Outer Space.)
I wore him down and got the book.
Then I switched library sections
Now the game’s afoot! Sherlock Holmes — wow! I found The Complete Sherlock Holmes in the El Segundo public library, in the Adult section when I was about twelve. I had to enlist parental help to get a card (the librarian told my mother “We have a fine Children’s section” to which my mother replied “Yes. He’s read them.”
I got an Adult card ahead of my time.
Here’s the commercial: support your local library. They need all the help they can get.
I brought the book home around noon, started reading and only looked up because it was getting too dark to see. I’ll never forget it.
Another birthday, another present from Grandmother, and another trip to Robinson’s where I found a hardback Sherlock, except . . .
The lady didn’t want to sell it to me, explaining that I’d be better off with The Boys Sherlock Holmes. This time I could not convince her so I found my mother, who explained that I’d already read the whole thing and now wanted a copy for my collection.
I got the book.
I wasn’t always fighting for a book.
There were occasionally unexpected benefits. For example, Frank Herbert’s Dune almost got me a job.
A couple of us were picked out of Trigonometry to interview with Computer Science Corporation for summer jobs. The interviewer asked what I liked to read and I said I was reading and loving Dune serialized in Analog Science Fiction magazine. He was too, and loved it and said if my friend didn’t take the job I could have it.
He was sailing through Trig; I was slogging and was glad when he got the job. But I sure liked talking to an adult about the Harkonnens and the worms.
“We read to know we are not alone." - C.S. Lewis
I’ve seen film of soldiers waiting in landing craft, waiting to pick up a rifle and wade ashore at D-Day — reading A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. Larry Niven tells the story of an Israeli soldier who carried one of his books through the Six- Day War. My godson carried a copy of Heinlein’s Starship Troopers on his first deployment to the Middle East.
Books, stories, helped them all.
My father collected westerns.
He assembled a complete set of novels by B. M. Bower, who had to use initials to disguise the fact that she was a woman. He and I used to go book hunting together and on one of those trips I found the book you see above. How traveled it has been!
- The USS Sitkoh Bay
- Travis Air Force Base
- then a library
- Salvage
- and then to a used bookstore.
Now I have it. The stories it could tell!
The stories you can tell!
I promised a purpose to this essay and there it is. Books, stories, are important. The line stretches back to the storyteller relating the adventures of Beowulf and his Spear Danes, forward to — you.
So, when you wake up at 2:00 a. m. and think, “Oh, man, I don’t know what happens next,” take heart. You’re in good company. You’re not alone. From campfire to keyboard, you’re not alone.
So — Who? Who? Who wrote the Book of Love? Why, you did, along with the many others who came before us.
And thanks to this award-winning blog you’re really not alone, because now it’s your turn. I know you all have similar tales about stories and what they meant to you. Help your fellow ink-stained wretches and share some. Please. It’s important, just as your work is important.
To end -- a few words from my favorite band:
“Dear Sir or Madam, will you read my book? It took me years to write, will you take a look?”
With a little help from our friends, we can all be paperback writers. That’s a hint. Not a big enough hint? From Flaubert to Paul McCartney – that’s quite a range, providing room for all of us.
* * * * * *
About James
James R. Preston is the author of the multiple-award-winning Surf City Mysteries. He is currently at work on the sixth, called Remains To Be Seen. His most recent works are Crashpad and Buzzkill, two historical novellas set in the 1960’s at Cal State Long Beach. Kirkus Reviews called Buzzkill “A historical thriller enriched by characters who sparkle and refuse to be forgotten.” His books are collected as part of the California Detective Fiction collection at the University of California Berkeley.
Find out more about James at his website.
Top photo from Unsplash.
Leave a Reply
32 comments on “For the Love of Books”
Tagged as:
Subscribe to WITS
Recent Posts
- Ways to Make The Pitch, A Writer’s Selling Point
- Finding the Heart of a Protagonist: Body, Mind, and Soul
- The New Rules of Book Publicity
- 2026 Is the Year Writers Stop Being Invisible
- What Developmental Editing Does for New Authors
Love this, and I can totally relate. My reading journey started with The Bobbsey Twins series, and by the time I was 12, I was reading my mother's Book of the Month Club novels. I especially enjoyed the love scenes. A few years ago my essay called "My Life In Books" was published in the Blydyn Square Review. I'm an editor, ghostwriter, novelist, and playwright, all because of my love of books.
What a great comment, Marylou! Yes, I was reading some of my parents' books, too. I still have some of the WW2 histories that my Dad read, like Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo. Can you supply a link to your "My Life in Books" essay? I'd like to read it and I know our other WITS readers would, too,
Thanks for contributing!
https://blydynsquarebooks.org/blydyn-square-review/read-the-review/blydyn-square-review-fall-2021/#my-life-in-books
Not sure if this will work, but here's a link to the issue with my essay. They built the whole issue around it.
Marylou, the link works just fine. I look forward to reading your essay.
I had the great privilege of growing up next door to the county library. I got hooked on The Happy Hollister series when I was eight and read all my brother's Hardy Boys books. When I was twelve, with my mother's permission I was allowed to check books out of the library's adult book section. At that time, I wanted to become a doctor (blame it on Dr. Kildare), and I read a number of books by Frank G. Slaughter, including THE SWORD AND THE SCALPEL. I also read the James Bond books and the Matt Helm and the Travis McGee series. The books I've written are not mysteries, but I still love to read them!
Ann, it's great to find another Matt Helm fan! I wanted to be a private eye (blame it on "77 Sunset Strip") Hmmm. So you don't write mysteries . . . What do you write? Now you've got us all interested.
Thanks!
But what about Tom Swift, Jr. and Isaac Asimov? They got me started. Then moved on to Ludlum who hooked me on thrillers. It's been quite a ride, but I do confess to reading the occasional non-fiction for a break, mostly tech of some sort.
Great post, great memories. Looking forward to Remains.
Thanks, Jack, I owe you one. I ran out of space and could not include Tom Swift Jr., or Rick Brant, or Tom Corbett. Now I get to mention their names. And what about Heinlein, Tunnel in the Sky? I could go on and on.
Jack didn't mention it in his comment but he is the author of the excellent Adam Braxton thrillers. I highly recommend them.
I was always into animals, especially horses and (only slightly less so) dogs. The Thorton W. Burgess series about North American animals ("Lightfoot the Deer," "Peter Cottontail," "Reddy Fox," "Paddy the Beaver," and others), the Uncle Wiggley Longears series by Howard Garis, "Black Beauty," "Beautiful Joe," the Walter Farley series of horse stories - you name it, if an animal was the main character, I read its story.
A favorite that lingers strongly in my mind 60 years later is Morris Frank's autobiographical book about the first Seeing Eye dog in the US, "First Lady of the Seeing Eye." And I remember having an anthology of true stories about animals in war, like dogs, horses, and birds in military service.
I started writing while a toddler. When I picked up a pencil or a crayon, it was a toss-up: Will I draw a horse today or write The Great American Novel? As a result, my early written works (which comprised reams of loose-leaf paper - I was ambitious, if not skilled) were badly and heavily plagiarized from my favorite horse stories. (Since then, my work has improved considerably both in quality and originality.)
These days, my reading interests are primarily in nonfiction, with fiction thrown in regularly to "cleanse the palate." I go gaga over scientific invention and discovery, and engineering and maritime topics. Being an editor as well as a writer, my nose is always in at least one book on the art and craft of writing. (I just finished one on developmental editing, a field I will not pursue because it is complex - and I'm old! - but the insights I gained have already benefited one of my clients.)
These days, I write for myself and edit for others. My clients' stories, whether fiction or nonfiction, fascinate me - each story contains a gem, and I revel in helping my client to pull that gem out and polish it.
Sally, those books sounds wonderful! Writing with pencil or crayon? You triggered a memory of mine. When I was very young I found one of my dad's books called Penrod, and in it Penrod gets s stub of pencil and starts writing a story. I thought, "I can do that." And I guess that was the beginning. Thank you, Sally, for commenting and for helping me to remember. Anybody else remember Penrod?
One of the first books I loved apparently was 'Noddy Goes to the Seaside' Mum had to read it to me over and over. I have loved the seaside ever since and now live there. Reading for myself my passion was pony books, though I never got to own one. Somewhere along the way I managed to get off ponies and onto Biggles and thus to Jean Plaidy style historic novels. Libraries are part of most memories. When we emigrated to Australia when I was eleven we were in a new suburb with no library. Mum was bereft so I got books out of the high school library for her and widened my horizons.
Another vote for the importance of libraries! Thanks, Janet. I missed Noddy Goes to the Seaside, but I bet I would have loved it. I remember the Bookmobile when I lived in Fullerton, and summer reading challenges like, "Read a blue book." And I loved Dr. Doolittle, but my Daschund would never talk to me.
Hello James 🙋👋
It took me a long time to go from sci-fi to the classics, but...
The Matt Helm movies were hysterical! I loved them! 👏👏
Dune was surely on of the great sci-fi novels of all time! But the sequels were formulaic and terrible! I gave up after 2 of them! 😱😖😭
Yep. Dune was amazing, Children of Dune was ok, and after that, well, the books went steadily downhill.
Matthew, thanks for commenting, but you are much kinder to the Matt Helm movies than I am. Maybe I'll track down a digital copy and give one of them another chance, but, really, singing?
My first library memory is of the shelf with the small versions of the works of Beatrix Potter or it's going to a story time. I don't have years for either. (Shout out to librarians for story times.)
I moved quickly to Carolyn Haywood,Beverly Cleary, and Judy Blume from the public library. I read Bobsey Twins at school, and we owned the Hardy Boys set. Then Came Sweet Valley High, the Works of Phyllis A. Whitney, and Ian Fleming. Somewhere in there I had a Choose Your Own Adventure phase and read some books based on TV series (I was a more avid viewer than reader). I also read a bunch of teen zines, which my dad got free because he was in advertising and they were proof copies. I had the issues before they were officially out. What a social boon for a shy kid. (Eventually I realized some were using me to get mags and not really my friends, but still.)
In high school, I read parapsychology and what was necessary for school. College didn't give me time for pleasure reading because I was an education/ Spanish major with a minor in English. Now I read magazines (AARP, Smithsonian), my husband's SF/F collection, my kidlit collection, and YA novels, often recommended by my son or as a potential comp, from the library.I'm going to have to look up Donald Hamilton.
Hi, Debbie. Yeah, let's hear it for story time! Stephen King describes library story time in It and it really takes me back every time I read it. I remember when I saw the movie "Hatari" and then found the paperback. It never occurred to me that movies could be novelized.
Donald Hamilton is well worth a look. Do start with the first book, Death of a Citizen, because they all connect and are best read in order.
Thanks for commenting!
A fascinating insight into your early reading.
I remember when I was very small, a book about two little pandas called Pink and Pink. I was too little to read it myself, but it was the start of my love of books.
Then I remember Enid Blyton. The first book of hers I remember reading was Shadow the Sheepdog. I loved that book. It inspired me to write my very first story. I then moved on to the Famous Five and the xxx of Adventure series.
Black Beauty was also a favourite, and then I read Treasure Island and Coral Island.
Graduating to adult books, I read Mary Webb and Mary Stewart.
I soon discovered Sci-fi and devoured John Windham, John Christopher etc.
By now I was well into my teens and read 1984 and Brave New World.
I started at Teacher Training College and on teaching practice, a little 9 year old introduced me to Tolkien and Fantasy. I discovered CS Lewis, too.
I still kept my love of Sci-fi, and read the Dune books. Great books. And I read the Thomas Covenant books too.
I could go on with others, but this would become far too long.
Right, Windham, Day of the Triffids. What a book! I found it in my uncle's library and read it practically in one sitting.
Thanks, V. M. and I could have gone on for more books, too. It looks like those of us who write share memories of favorite books, too. If you read 1984 and Brave New World, did you also happen to read a cold war novel called Level 7? It's pretty grim but I remember the impression it made. Anybody else remember Level 7?
I thought I was the only 12-year-old sneaking into the library's adult section! The librarians hated it, but there wasn't anything they could do. I read Rachel Carson's Silent Spring and every biography of every king, queen, pharaoh they had. I loved Judy Bolton mysteries too, then I discovered Ian Fleming's 007 by the time I was 14. I still have 3 books given to me as a child: Misty of Chincoteague Island, El Blanco Legend of the White Stallion, and the Shirley Temple Story Book. Thanks for the trip down memory lane!
Good for you, Vicki, sneaking into the adult section. But, wow, Silent Spring at a very early age. I'm impressed! I started off with Norse mythology and still enjoy it. Thank you for reminding me.
I'm happy to meet you, James, obviously a prolific, award-winning author. Thank you for offering your history of book loving.
I too have blogged about my love of books, most recently featuring a story about a bandaged-up book: https://marianbeaman.com/2025/05/28/how-nature-heals-gift-spring/
Marian, I had to look up the picture of Come to Storyland and yes, that's a book that has seen some use. Like you, I would love every dog-eared page of the old friend.
Thanks!
I taught myself to read through recognizing words from tv advertising. This was despite schools telling parents not to teach their kids to read because it might conflict with the school's method. (Long before Sesame Street.)
When my Grade One teacher wrote a word on the blackboard and asked whether anyone knew what it was, I said, "Tom."
She was angry. "Did your parents teach you to read?"
"No. I have a hand puppet named Tom," I answered.
At age seven, I asked my parents to buy me Anne of Green
Gables, which I had heard was good. "But there are no pictures!" the store clerk said. I insisted, and won.
I loved Nancy Drew and other mysteries, and progressed to my father's Sherlock Holmes stories. At camp, other kids asked for candy; I asked for another book. I skipped over kids' books and went right to adult books when I was 12.
Barb, I love it. Tom the hand puppet helps you in class. I can hear that clerk now, telling you there are no pictures. Good job to insist.
Thanks for commenting, glad you like Holmes, too, because the game's definitely afoot with this post!
I read EVERYTHING. Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, my dad's Daniel Boone, Zane Grey, and Lone Ranger books. Judy Blume, all the horse books, and by the time I was 9 or 10, all my parents adult books.
My mother never censored my reading because she knew if it was too much for me, I'd put it down. The John Jakes Gideon family Chronicles, I blew through. But the Godfather and Valley of the Dolls, I put down.
I found Harlequins in the 6th and 7th grade and added romance to my repertoire after that. The classics were in there too. I never caught the science fiction bug, but I read everything else.
I'm with you, Jenny -- I read everything I could get my hands on, and there was nothing like the thrill of discovering a new writer. I have to say, however, that The Godfather grabbed me like few other books ever have. We were on a driving vacation when I started it and I could not stop reading. We'd stop for gas and I'd get through a couple of pages. Loved that story!
Now, may I suggest a treat? Take a look at Frank Herbert's Dune. You won't be sorry.
I put the Godfather down at the horse's head in the bed. I just didn't have the fortitude to withstand that level of mean at that age. I've always thought I should pick it back up. And I have long thought I should read Dune. That book grabbed my husband and he's not a reader. So, I know it would grab me.
Grabbed is right, Jenny! I first read Dune when it was serialized in Analog Science Fiction Magazine, so I had to wait a month for the next installment! Arrrgh!
That series has an interesting history. I met Frank Herbert's son (ok, so I'm name-dropping) and the story he tells behind the follow-on books goes like this. After Herbert died his son opened a safe deposit box and found notes and old 6 1/2" floppies with the beginning of "Dune 7." The rest is history.
I envy you reading Dune for the first time.
I've been reading since Little Golden Books. I still have a few of mine from childhood.
Yes! Little Golden Books! My mother must have saved mine because I found a about a dozen when I went through boxes of her stored material. They're wonderful. Thanks for reminding all of us, Denise.
James, I'm late commenting but I have to say reading this made me smile and laugh. I don't remember exactly what book was my first love but I know it was early. I haunted the library and got my adult library card early as well (I don't remember needing help to get it--checking out twenty or more books a week may have persuaded the librarians!) I read a lot of Tom Swift Jr. when I was very young. And every horse book I could find. I've blogged about some of the books that spoke to me. Madeline L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time captured me so completely I was certain I'd seen it as a movie--but the movie wasn't made for years and years after I read it! I was systematic (I thought) about how I read. I'd pick a fiction genre and read every book my library had in that one, then choose the next one. I read gothic romance, and mystery (blame Perry Mason!) and spy thrillers (yup 007), and westerns then I got into biographies and so much more. Such great memories. Thanks for stirring them up.
And you made me smile with this comment, Lynette. I love hearing about how much we all loved to read as little ones.