Reading is a basic tool in the living of a good life. (Mortimer J. Adler)

A friend from my school days credited me today on Facebook with having inspired her love of reading. I'm not sure how much I really did. It was apparently always seeing me with a book in front of my face that made her want to see what the attraction was. And I'm sure that I always did have my nose in a book; after all, I pretty much always have a book in my hand now. (Although having recently discovered audiobooks and their convenience for knitting and walking may change things in the future.)

I grew up in a family of readers, so being a bookworm is pretty much a hereditary thing. All the adults, on both sides of my family, were readers. Oh, they all like different types of books -- I think my Uncle Ron was westerns, my aunts like mysteries, my mom secretly prefers romance, my Nana was "real literature." But everyone kept shelves of much-loved ("dog-eared") books in the house. Granted, some of us took reading to the extreme -- but I definitely wasn't the only bookworm.

When my family gets together, one of our (unofficial) traditions is to trade books.

"Hey, I've finished this one. You want it?"
"Sure. Was it any good? I've got these I'm done with. You can take them home with you."

I trade books with my mom and my sister so often that we now code the inside covers so that we remember who to pass them on to next. I also trade with my aunt when she comes down to visit; she brings a couple of books to read on the plane ride down and while she's here, and then we trade so she has something to read on her way home. Quite a few novels made the rounds when we were up in Jersey for my grandmother's funeral. Gramma would have been proud -- she was a reader, too.

Friends are dragged into the family tradition. Fellow bookworms are greated with open arms (filled with books). Tentative readers are tempted until they sucomb, adding another source of reading material to the family libraries.

Of all the traditions I grew up with (and we are a family that loves our traditions), this love of reading is the one I'm most proud to pass on and share with others.