When I was young, I was a voracious reader. The impetus for all that reading most likely was the fact that we didn't have a television from the time I was in 5th grade up through my early years in high school. Even when we finally joined the rest of the world and re-connected the television, I still kept right on reading. During summer vacations, it wasn't unusual for me to plow through 2 or 3 books a week. That was particularly true during the time I was lifeguarding when we had the awesome "15 minutes on, 45 minutes off" schedule.
As soon as high school ended, so did my reading. Books just became too intimidating to me. The time commitment that they required seemed overwhelming. There have been a couple exceptions over the past 25 years. For example, I've read all of Jon Krakauer's books. And, there was my "Hunger Games" period last year. But, I've event stopped reading Stephen King novels. I occasionally get them for Christmas and birthday gifts but they just pile up on the bookshelves.
So, last Saturday, when the power had been out for over 12 hours and it appeared that it wouldn't be coming back anytime soon, I had a choice to make. A couple years ago, Hannah had found a book called "The Passage" by Justin Cronin. Hannad had read that Stephen King had called it his favorite novel of the year. She'd grown up seeing the Stephen King collection in our study and, based on that, decided it would make a great birthday present for me. I remember reading the inside jacket when I opened it and deciding that it actually looked pretty interesting. I made a vow to read it and, instead of putting it on the bookshelf, set it on my desk in our bedroom.
For the next two years, the book sat there, unopened. Every once in a while, I'd look at it and tell myself that I really should sit down and give it a chance. But, each time I said that to myself, I chickened out. Did I really want to make that investment of time? Wouldn't it be easier to simply turn on the TV and flip through channels for a while or waste some time on the internet? Easier always won out.
On Saturday afternoon, TV was no option and I was conserving the battery on the iPad for important stuff, like checking www.pgatour.com for leaderboard updates from the AT&T National. I broke down, picked up the book, and started to read.
The book is very derivative of "The Stand" (with a little "Salem's Lot" thrown in for good measure). As those are two of my all-time favorite Stephen King novels, that's not too much of a bad thing. I'm happy to report that I'm now 275 pages into it. Even after the power came back on Saturday night, I've continued to plow away, putting away another 50 pages yesterday. I've got 500 more pages to go. I think I may actually make it.