Scott Garson, On Reading

"I have a seven-year old, and when it's my turn to put her to bed, I read to her from 'chapter books' that are somewhat beyond her own reading level. Right now we're reading William Pene DuBois' The Twenty-One Balloons, which is great. I read that one when I was young, but even when we're reading something new, like Brian Selznick's The Invention of Hugo Cabret, the pleasure for me is a nostalgic one. Is my own reading different? Yes and no. Nostalgia is an existential tension, if that's not too heady a thing to say. You feel, maybe deeply, what's no longer there. It's a state that can't be secured. For me that's a basic part of the appeal of all of the reading I value. Something in a voice connects with you, wholly. What is it? Where has it gone?"

{Scott Garson edits Wigleaf and is the Series Editor for the Wigleaf Top 50 (Very) Short Fictions annual. His collection of microfictions, American Gymnopédies, was published by Willows Wept Press. Visit his website here for more information.}