My 12-year-old daughter and I have recently taken to reading together, but doing it apart. Like a mini book club.
Let me explain. A while back we were watching a show on Netflix called The Prophets of Science Fiction. If you have not seen this show, I highly recommend it. As we were watching, we came across an episode on Philip K Dick. Being a semi-literate nerd, I had heard the name before. I know of his contribution to the world of science fiction… but I had never read his work. As we learned more about him, we grew intrigued and we decided that we would read some of his works.
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That is where the wonderful world of Amazon came into play. We ordered two of his books, an anthology and We Can Remember it For You Wholesale, for our Kindles. I immediately started reading the short stories from the anthology while she began with We Can Remember it For You Wholesale. To say that she became hooked would be an understatement. She has traditionally not been a reader. Sure, she would read for school, when she had to. Other than the required reading, her only other foray into literature was the exit ramp to Twilight, but she became a voracious reader of Philip K Dick. She tore through We Can Remember it For You Wholesale and then went to work on the anthology.
When I said that we were reading together but doing it apart, we would read on our own and then get back together and share what we read and what it made us think about. One of the stories that we read and discussed was “The Eyes Have It.” (You can click that link. I suggest that you do so and read the story before going on.) For the next week, we would end just about every conversation with “I have no stomach for it.” (Not the exact quote from the story, but close enough for us.) One night, over dinner we tried to explain the story to my wife. My wife is a wonderful lady for putting up with us, but she is a tad too practical at times. This was one of those times. While she did not get the story, she got that we did.
A couple of weeks after my daughter read We Can Remember it For You Wholesale, the movie version Total Recall with Colin Farrell was on TV. I asked her if she wanted to watch it. She thought about it for a minute, then she replied. “Naw, I think I am good. I don’t see how the movie could improve on the book.”
She’s pretty smart.
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