Reading Is FUNdamental

It's kind of a terrifying thought: I could read more than one hundred books this year if I kept up the pace I set for the first two weeks of the year. Right after Christmas I sat down and started reading. For some reason, a great many of my friends and family were kind enough to give me the gift of books this year. This wasn't always the case. For several years when I worked at a book wholesaler managing the warehouse operations, I was getting all my books for half price. Everyone I knew was getting books for Christmas, Kwanza, birthdays, Arbor Day - books were our currency back then.
Not as much anymore. These days the books I spend most of my time with are leveled fourth grade readers, with phonics lessons attached. "leisure reading" has become somewhat of an oxymoron around my house - for me at least. My wife has half a dozen books that she is "working on," while my son is routinely chastised for reading too much. I kid, of course, since I can't imagine what "reading too much" might actually look like, but he would read into the wee small hours of the morning if we let him.
Me? I'm feeling the legacy of my father. Like my son, I grew up with my nose in a book. I read novels, short stories, non-fiction, and on one celebrated occasion, an entire Film Encyclopedia (A to Z). I got my love of books from my mother. My father wasn't quite as attached to the printed word. The irony of his lifelong connection to the world of publishing is not lost on me. He had a copy of "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich" sitting on his dresser for more years than I can remember. I have not memories of my father actually reading the book, but I can recall him saying (especially around New Years' Resolution time) how this would be the year that he would finally finish that book.
He never did. It was a great big hardbound albatross around his neck. There were a great many things that my father left undone, but that's the one that sticks with me. When I find myself struggling to finish a book, I immediately picture the black and white cover of "Third Reich" peering out from beneath the detritus of my father's life. I head back abruptly to finish whatever I'm reading.
Have you read Frank McCourt's "Teacher Man : A Memoir?" I just started it a couple of nights ago, and I recommend it highly.