Wouldn’t you like to expose your newer readers to some of you earlier posts that they might never have seen? Or remind your long term followers of posts that they might not remember?

Each Friday I will publish a post I wrote on this exact date in a previous year.

How about you? Why don’t you reach back into your own archives and highlight a post that you wrote on this very date in a previous year? You can repost your Friday Flashback post on your blog and pingback to this post. Or you can just write a comment below with a link to the post you selected.

If you’ve been blogging for less than a year, go ahead and choose a post that you previously published on this day (the 3rd) of any month within the past year and link to that post in a comment.

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This was originally posted on January 3, 2013 on my old blog.

Reading is Fundamental

Here’s something few people know about me. I once was a voracious reader. Yeah, I know. Looking at how I spend my discretionary time these days, that’s hard to believe. I bet my own kids have never seen me pick up a book and read it unless it had something to do with my job.

Seriously, though, back in the day, when I was an avid reader, I immersed myself in suspense and conspiracy as I devoured books by authors such as Robert Ludlam and Ken Follett. James Clavell transported me to the intrigues of feudal Japan and the early days of Hong Kong, while James Michner guided me on exotic adventures across the globe spanning eons.

Robin Cook thrilled me with medical mysteries and John Gresham and Scott Turow got me all tangled up in legal shenanigans and courtroom chicanery. Stephen King and Dean Koontz sent chills of horror up and down my spine.

Philip Roth, JD Salinger, and John Irving helped me put into perspective the angst of growing up and the struggles and challenges of being a flawed human being. Issac Asimov, Ray Bradury, and Frank Herbert launched me through the time and space continuum to worlds beyond my imagination. And JRR Tolkein introduced me to Bilbo and Frodo Baggins and the Middle Earth.

During my reading days I would leverage the 30 to 60 minutes on the commuter trains each way between home and work to travel to far away places. On flights for business I would spend my time not only getting to my reality destination, but also being carried away to other times, other worlds, and even other identities. And rather than automatically turning on the TV each night, I would pick up a book and read myself to sleep. I typically got through maybe two to three novels a week back then.

Who Has Time to Read Fiction These Days?

But that was before myriad cable channels beckoned and DVRs turned us all into time-shifters. That was before the proliferation of laptops, netbooks, and tablets that you carry with you instead of leaving behind at the office or at home. That was before BlackBerrys, iPhones, and Android devices transformed us into always-connected workaholics or gossip-mongers needing to know what every one of our hundreds of “friends” is doing in real-time via our addictions to Facebook and Twitter.

Oh no! I forgot to “check in” at the place we ate dinner last night.

Now, as a telecommuter, I work from home, so I no longer have time to kill (and read) on commuter trains. When my job requires me to spend hours on an airplane, most of it is spent on my laptop, preparing for the meeting I’m about to attend, or documenting my notes from the one I just attended. Rather than picking up a book in my “down time” at home, I catch up on all of those TV shows we recorded on our DVR.

Reading for pleasure seems like a distant memory to me. And yet, in the far reaches of my mind, I have this vague recollection of delightful escapism when I sat down with a novel that transported me to times, places, and events far and wide; that introduced me to all kinds of wonderful (and sometimes not so wonderful, but certainly colorful) characters.

New Year’s Readolutions

As it’s that time of the year to make resolutions, I have decided to resolve to read no less than 24 books this year. A wide variety of books, but mostly novels of all kinds — historical, science fiction, fantasy, mystery, thrillers, humorous, whatever.

To that end, I downloaded the free Kindle app on my iPad and, being the cheap son-of-a-bitch that I am, immediately went to the “free books” section.

I “bought” two books, Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables and a murder mystery by an author I’d never previously heard of, L.L. Bartlett, called Murder on the Mind.

I admit that I could barely make it through the first few pages of Hugo’s sweeping novel that served as the inspiration for my favorite stage musical. I decided to shift gears and try something a little less formidable for my initial reentry into reading for fun, and the Bartlett novel was perfect…a quick, engaging read.

So let’s see if I can manage to read at least two books a month this new year. I’m feeling pretty confident. And maybe I’ll even be able to get through Les Mis before the year is over.