Fathers Day, a note of thanks
My dad's leather-patched elbow, with which he has nudged me into all sorts of literary and musical exploration
Sometimes I'm too tired to avoid the cliche up ahead, so here's a Fathers' Day post about my dad, without whom... (well, without whom I wouldn't be here, obviously, but I mean apart from that).
When I had measles, aged 9 or 10, he read a good chunk of The Lord of the Rings to me, because he's not one for taking age into account (thankfully). I struggled with it when he handed it over once I was feeling better, and it took me another few years to go back and finish it, but the spark of interest was there.
He likes Douglas Adams, and Terry Pratchett, and he thought I might too (and as we now know, my entire writing career such as it is can be blamed on Douglas Adams)
He likes Anthony Trollope, and he thought I might too (can you see a pattern emerging here?)
He assiduously collected PKD novels in the years when they were hard to come by, scouring the second hand bookshops of West Yorkshire and Cumbria, and shared them. When I'm finally happy with my SF noir novel, Sunrise Over Centrified City, he'll get to see where all that ended up.
He let me read the Maigret novels he got out of the library, when I was still on a children's ticket (it's that not accounting for age thing again. That also got me using big words quite early on - learn fast or have no idea what he's talking about...)
If you've been around here for a while you can see the shape of my reading habits in this list. And if you really have been around for a while you probably know some of the musical ones too (all the bits that aren't Big Brother's fault. Both of them deny all responsibility for the hair metal). I am still resistant to Roxy Music, however.
Thanks today to all the dads that read to their kids, take them to libraries, buy them books (whether or not that involves keeping a list tucked in their wallet of which books exist in a series and which ones said child hasn't read yet) and generally enthuse them about reading. Better than a kickabout in the park any day.