Habitual Reader Profiles - Page 1

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	Name: Luanne Oleas
	City & State: Cupertino, California
	Vocation / Avocation: Writer/fiction & technical

Why I'm a Habitual Reader:

I am a habitual reader because my Irish grandmother taught me to be. We would lay in her bed for hours, while she had me read the newspaper to her. I was four. That started a lifelong addiction. When most kids went to pre-school, I went to library school.

Those squiggly black lines on a white page were always my best friend. They gave me a home to come back to when I felt lost. They were the way to freedom and travel when I was grounded. Soon, they became the hero I emulated when my own stories busted out. I would love to have my first novel cerealized on the back of cereal boxes. Like every habitual reader, I read when I eat.

Reading is the best thing about flying, being a passenger on a long car trip, rainy days, vacations, and lunching at home alone. I love my husband and our marriage has lasted 31 years because we are both habitual readers. We can sit in a room together for hours, each lost in our own world. His usually includes the Civil War. Mine always includes relationships of some sort. We understand each other's addiction and wouldn't have it any other way.

My List of Ten: Books that Build Character

1. Catcher in the Rye
Author: J.D. Salinger
Because I was Holden Caulfield and I love those long, long, long sentences, with bouquets of parentheses (((()))) and the blessing of real interior dialogue.

2. Turtle Moon
Author: Alice Hoffman
Because reading A.H. is like trying to figure out how a magician does a trick. Each time I try to figure out why her writing is so great, I only get sucked into the magic. "All the way to heaven is heaven, and all of it a kiss."

3. The Last Convertible
Author: Anton Myrer
He helped me understand my parents' war, WWII. His book includes all my favs, a boatload of characters, lots of pages, and an honest story.

4. The Incredible Journey
Author: Sheila Burnford
I can read the ending over and over and still cry. That's magic. That's talent.

5. West with the Night
Author: Meryl Markham
Open it to any page and it's poetry. Who cares what the story is. Some say she didn't write it and I believe she didn't. I believe Antoine St. Exupery (Le Petit Prince) wrote it. Or at least he edited it heavily. It has all his earmarks. I'm just glad someone wrote it.

6. Trinity
Author: Leon Uris
The land of my people book. It gave me insights to my Irish heritage that I longed for. Lots of heroic villains and villainous heroes.

7. Birdson
Author: Sebastian Faulks
He made growing old humorous and brought WWI to life for me.

8. Boy's Life
Author: Robert McCammon
The story of my youth, if I had been a boy. I understood everything about it, since I was born in '53. It was as if someone recorded my own memories.

9. Travels with Charley
Author: John Steinbeck
Because he was himself in that book. He's from my home town. All my grandmother's stories about him were true. I like the way he looked at Salinas from a mountain and then moved on.

10. The Astonished Eye
Author: Tracy Knight
I always wondered what happened to the last living munchkin, and why our sense of smell moves us like no other sense. And I enjoy the thought that Superman could be brought back to life if we need him.

Have you read any of these titles? Review one now.

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