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Interview #168: SFRevu Interview, Entry #8

Ernest Lilley

Do you remember what the first book that you read was?

Robert Jordan

Yes, It was White Fang , but only the second half of it. You see, my older brother, who is twelve years older than I am, was sometimes stuck babysitting me, and what he did to keep me from sticking my hands in his goldfish bowl, and to keep from flying his balsa wood planes off the porch, was to read to me. He would read whatever he had to read for school though, and I somehow picked up reading out of this, and the first time it really manifested itself to me, he had been reading White Fang until our parents came home and he put it back on the shelf…and I wanted to know what happened. So I took the book back down and I worked my way through it. I did not get every word, but I got enough to understand the story. I remember that very clearly. I was very proud of myself for doing that. By the next year I had no trouble at all with Twain or Verne. I had a little difficulty with H.G. Wells.

Ernest Lilley It sounds like you were a pretty eclectic reader. Robert Jordan At that point I was reading anything I could get my hands on. You see I was reading what I found on my parents bookshelves. Later, when I got a library card, I was disgusted to find I was supposed to go to something called the “children’s section”. The only books I found there that I enjoyed were the “Freddy the Pig” books, and some juvenile Heinlein. Those books fascinated me and I loved them. For the rest, there was nothing in the children’s section that I wanted to pay attention to, and I wanted to get books like I’d been reading at home. So, I’d go into the adult’s section of the library and snag books off the adult shelves. I’d take them to a reading room and I’d put the books that I wanted to keep on a shelf where they didn’t seem to be bothered, and I’d leave the ones that I didn’t find interesting on the table where they would get put back. Thus I went through life never reading any children’s books, until I was married. The first time my wife got sick she wanted me to read her children’s books…so I did.

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