I grew up reading avidly, both fiction and non-, and continued to read a lot as an adult. I especially loved and still love collections of short stories. Reading a series of short stories was better than watching TV, and there were no commercials! Then I was introduced to the Internet. The Internet is at once an avenue to all things cultural and literary today and a destroyer of good reading habits. Before I bash too much, even without the Internet, I wonder if some of us lose our reading habits any way as we get older. I won't put all the blame on the web.I've managed to read books off and on since my Internet reading and blogging began, but recently something happened that unexpectedly increased time spent reading off line (or "real reading", as I'd like to call it). A little corner of my house serves as a small sun room, and I've been doing it up to feel like a sort of patio or veranda. A ceiling fan and another picture not shown in my photo here, and two or three vases of cat-safe artificial plants add to a fantasy tropical island atmosphere. I also call it my Key Largo Room, frankly named after a favorite movie rather than a book. It seems to be one of Ollie's favorite places in the house, too, which I take as a good sign. (The wrap-around corner window that admits so much light to this room has a wide sill, and this is Ollie's porch which I've mentioned elsewhere with photos taken of him through the screen.)
Getting to my point: The Key Largo Room has become almost unintenionally a reading sanctum. The computer, stereo, and the TV and DVD player are all located in other rooms away from this part of the house. I gravitate to this room with my books or magazines and sit for a spell to read without distraction. Lately, I finished reading "Livvia" in The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty. I planned to post a passage from this beautiful story, as I have done here in the past. It would have been a slice of a larger story that felt so much like walking through a painting: Welty's description of the magical yard leading up to Solomon's little house from the Natchez Trace. This would have left out all the personal drama that makes the story, however. Besides the main action with Livvia and Solomon, later in the story come scenes involving an almost fairy-like but not exactly benign precursor to the Avon Lady selling cosmetics for both "white and colored people" and a dapper figure who reminds me a little of Sportin' Life in "Porgy and Bess".
Maybe a book club that meets in person would be another avenue for social interaction; however, the idea of agreeing to read the same book that I might not otherwise read so that it could be discussed at the meeting puts me off for some reason. I've heard of some clubs that let you talk about whatever you're reading, regardless of whether other people in the group are reading the same thing, and that's more appealing.
Looking for blogs with a literary bent, I searched on Welty's name and found Read All Day. I'm posting the link here for reference and for something else to read on the Internet. I might include it in my blog roll when I can get to my other, more capable computer.
Addendum:
The picture that is visible in my photo is "Tradewinds" by Diane Dunn of the Artists' Gallery in Columbia Town Center. It's an infrared photograph handpainted with pastels. Although taken in Hawaii, the windblown palm trees certainly remind me of imagery in the movie, "Key Largo".
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