The Boy Who Loved Books

[Everardo Frost]

Salesfrom September 2015 to March of this year are up 10% from same time period the year before. And a small caf along with tables and chairs provide a place for customers to have a cup of coffee, talk and feel a sense of community.

The Library

Our local library was a very important part of my childhood. As I have said, we had little money and so most of our books came from the library. Today libraries are desperately important in many disadvantaged communities, and are still of great value everywhere. In fact, the library is so important that I shall post a blog about them soon, for I have gathered some very fascinating information.

My latest contribution, A Prayer for Peace, is a revised and illustrated version of the prayer that I wrote some time ago. And I met and was so impressed by the Iranian artist, Feeroozeh Golmohammadi, who illustrated it.

Title: Reader's Digest Best Loved Books For Young Readers Complete 14 Volume Set

Format: Clothbound Hardcover

Author: Selected & Compiled by The Editors of The Reader's Digest

Illustrator: Various

Publisher: The Reader's Digest Association, Pleasantville, New York

Year: 1966 (1967 Canada) - First Editions

Length: Various

Dimensions: 5.75" wide by 7.75" tall

Condition: Minor cover and spine wear noted especially around the edges. Volume two has a little fading on the front cover. Several volumes have names or bookplates added into the inside covers. No torn or missing pages noted. No other writing within any pages noted. Volume seven has a little piece missing out of the top corner of the front cover as shown in the photos. Each edition is tightly bound. Volume one is the most loved in this set.

The covers and inside covers are just as fantastic (if not more so) than the spines. I love that the title page is printed with the same color as the spine - just a fun added touch to these books. Titles includes Little Women, Hunchback of Notre Dame, Treasure Island, Jane Eyre, The Story of Helen Keller and so many more. They are all condensed versions of the original books. A beautiful set for not only displaying but also for hours of reading fun.

On the one hand, I blame my limited literary exposure for my choice of books. On the other hand, it can also be attributed to the sheer global dominance of white literature then and now. I was a bookish girl born into a family of nonreaders in the Philippines, a former U.S. colony. What were the chances at the time that someone like me would have access to books written by authors such as Carlos Fuentes, Eileen Chang (also known as Zhang Ailing), and Khushwant Singh? Zero.

This is not to diminish the considerable talents and significant accomplishments of Steinbeck, Buck, and Forster. Steinbeck and Buck were winners of the Nobel Prize in Literature, while Forster was nominated for the prize thirteen times. They were such great writers that they succeeded in portraying characters outside of their culture and class. Indeed, they were lauded for writing characters who were not like them.

And yet the question nagged at me: Are my beloved books products of cultural appreciation or appropriation? To find an answer, I explored the concept of cultural appropriation. The term gets thrown around a lot, but what does it really mean?

Context always matters, so answering those questions required a closer look at the careers of Steinbeck, Buck, and Forster, especially as they relate to the three books in question. Did they write those books for gain or because they genuinely cared about the cultures represented in their novels?

Buck was born on June 26, 1892, in Hillsboro, West Virginia, but she grew up in China where her Presbyterian missionary parents worked. As an adult, she returned to China to take care of her ailing mother. She met her first husband, John Lossing Buck, in China. They lived there in the early part of their marriage.

Did they appropriate? Yes, they did. Did they show empathy for people of color in their novels? Yes, they did. Empathy is part of the reason the three novels, all of which have been adapted into movies, are popular. Putting the books within the context of their careers, the three authors showed a deep appreciation for the people and cultures depicted in their works.

Enjoy strange, diverting work from The Commuter on Mondays, absorbing fiction from Recommended Reading on Wednesdays, and a roundup of our best work of the week on Fridays. Personalize your subscription preferences here.

Cindy Fazzi is a Filipino American writer and former Associated Press reporter. She has worked as a journalist in the Philippines, Taiwan, and the United States. Her historical novel, My MacArthur, was published by Sand Hill Review Press in 2018. It was named a quarterfinalist in the 2018 ScreenCraft Cinematic Book Competition. Her contemporary thriller, Multo, will be published by Agora, an imprint of Polis Books in June 2023.

Electric Literature is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization founded in 2009. Our mission is to amplify the power of storytelling with digital innovation, and to ensure that literature remains a vibrant presence in popular culture by supporting writers, embracing new technologies, and building community to broaden the audience for literature.

I am now neck-deep in research for what is, I hope, the follow-up to my first two books of a projected trilogy.

The first two, The Book of Conquests and The Silver Arm, were published in the late 70s and early 80s but the third and final of this series, The Son of the Sun, was never completed.

Now the time has come to finish this ambitious trilogy.

It brings me back to my earliest research and discovery of our ancient origins. It was here where I fell in love with Irish mythology and a lifelong obsession began.

It was nice to know that the wonderful James Joyce, this friend of my grandfather Thomas Fitzpatrick and my own family, had a connection with Drumcondra, one of my favourite places on the planet along with Glasnevin and both wonderful, safe, warm places to grow up in as a kid.

What I did love most about that beautiful library in Drumcondra was the silence. For myself, reading in silence is a huge comfort, it allows me to let the mind run free and live another life in my imagination.

I and my mother stayed in a few homes in Glasnevin and Drumcondra as lodgers from 1948, when my Father sold our house without us knowing, to 1960 when we finally had a place to ourselves. It seems such a short time now but those years were wonderful for me as a kid with lots of friends it was much, much harder for my very proud mom.

At this point my father had been taken to Grangegorman Mental Hospital to dry out, I even remember visiting him there and meeting his mates from the Irish Times drying out with him.

My mother was completely broke and I think she was looking for some help from the family but he had even gambled away his own family home and now the entire family was broke, not just us.

The early sections of Keatings History were mesmerizing and told in great detail the tales of the early invader races that came to Ireland and their stories were extraordinary and revealing.

In my case, they certainly inspired my work and still do.

Now, with age taking its slow toll, it is time to finally complete the trilogy. Inevitably, this leads me to the final chapter of this epic tale, the story of the earliest inhabitants and the invaders who all contribute to our genetic makeup stretching back thousands of years.

All those old musty, dusty books of mine are now out again and scattered over the couch as I research the ancient texts to tell the story of my ancestors, their conquests and defeats, and their rituals and beliefs all those thousands of years ago.

I am using one or two of those very same books I read as a child but now they are supplemented with more serious works of analysis and research. I use Google to fine-tune a lot of my work and check for errors using the finest research ever available from expert academics in faraway universities and elsewhere, a virtual bonanza of information that I use to add to material from the annals now digitized and available to one and all at no cost.

Advancements in DNA and archaeology have revealed even more about our ancient past. These new discoveries are helping to make sense of some of our earliest stories including the material I have translated and recorded for the first two volumes and now for this new final volume, The Son of the Sun.

So when we invited members of the Times-Union's book club, also members of our Email Group, to describe their formative experiences with reading, we received enough material for two editorials. So here is take two.

For the next week or so he needed me to help him with some words, and then he was on his own, reading everything in sight, working out the pronunciations of big words and moving into chapter books while in Pre-K.

As a child, reading had been very difficult for me. However, my mother took all the time necessary to teach me not only to sound out words but taught me to love the stories that unfolded when putting those words together.

A large influence on me became the newspaper comic strips back when comic strips specialized in serial stories, such as Dick Tracy, Terry and The Pirates, Johnny Hazard, Brick Bradford and so many more.

Today, comics are little more than an afterthought. And daily newspapers have managed to kill off serial strips by convincing themselves - not us - that the readership is incapable of holding a thought from one day to the next.

So we asked our readers to tell us about their favourite classic books. The resulting list of must-reads is a perfect way to find inspiration to start your classics adventure. There's something for everyone, from family sagas and dystopian fiction to romances and historical fiction.

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