I had a hard time with numbers growing up, but words have always been my friend, and solace, actually, for me.
I think, you know, my first memories of having a personal relationship with reading probably started with "Where the Red Fern Grows" and "Pope Joan".
There were books that led me to understanding that I wanted to put words on a page myself.
And any time I felt like retreating or going somewhere else, it was easy to do so in a book.
I remember the first book that I really, really fell in love with, and that made me understand that this was something I'll never have enough time in my life for, that there is just a sort of bottomless, unending source that was available to me, was through Steinbeck.
I read "Cannery Row", and I was just like, "Okay, I'm going to read everything he's ever written, "because I just want to be with this person." I want to hear his voice in my dreams, I want... So, that was my first obsession, and that was probably beyond all of the little kid novels, the first time that I was hungry, sort of insatiable.
And I feel really lucky for that, too.
I read the whole of "East of Eden" on a plane, I was on a really long flight to Shanghai, and I was claustrophobic on the plane.
I was 16 or 17, and I had teenage anxiety.
I think I got through two thirds of "East of Eden" in a 15-hour period, because I just was like, "If I just stay here, I'll be okay." And that's, for me, the "big book".
