I was not a reader as a child. (I know. I know. Go iron your hands, Sandy.) I was the one outside, having adventures high the trees, or wading through a rushing creek looking for crayfish, or falling on my face running down a hill or doing a fancy trick on my bike or skates or “highwire” fences. However, I’m glad to say that I have since become a reader. (Get the salve, Sandy. Get out that soothing salve.) Hence, every once in a while, I’ll go through a catch-up reading spree where I’ll read four or five books, sometimes all in one day. ( if you get hungry, Family, you know where the can opener is.)

The thing which totally took me by surprise about reading was getting lost in a book. I remember the first time it happened, when I was twenty-five. (Late bloomer.) I was underwater – not so unusual for a swim coach’s daughter – but I wasn’t swimming – again, not so unusual as I used to dream I was a mermaid. This time, I was in an amazing machine, a submarine, and later, breathing underwater with this huge glass helmet. Can you tell what I was reading? A classic: Jules Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea.

Imagining myself being someplace else, or doing something else was also not so unusual for me. What was unusual, was the fact when I looked up from the book, it took me several minutes to realize what I was looking at, where I was, and who I was. Lost. I’d become lost in the story.

It also happened to me while reading C. S. Lewis’ science fiction Space Trilogy, for adults. Later, I asked a friend who had also read the series, “Didn’t you just love *such-and-such* a part?” The friend, who actually is an avid reader, responded, “That part was so boring. I skipped several pages until it got back to the story line.” Which is the very reason why I am thankful for so many genres and authors and points of view.

Perhaps you’d like to try Lewis’ Space Trilogy, or any number of Verne’s books, and see whether you can get lost there, too. Or, let me know of another book in which you got lost while reading. Now, quit reading blogs, and go get lost in a book.