All Quiet on the Western Front. That was the book that started my addiction. Since then I've become a word junky. Hooked on the combination of words that create sentences, sentences that create paragraphs, paragraphs strung together to create novels.
I can't explain why I became a word addict, but I started in 7th grade. "Hi. My name's Mike and I have a problem."

"All writers read, but not all readers write."

After giving up on becoming a writer for a living, I've begun to believe in this maxim more and more. A writer I'm not and I know this now. But books, I devour them. At times I've gone through two a week. I know some people read more than that, but for a lot of them they read books for their job as critics, teachers or even as professional readers. I'm none of these. I read waiting for the bus, during lunch, after work, waiting for the train, during dinner (in between bites if I'm eating alone,) while watching T.V., while listening to music, sleeping, whenever. It may seem I have no life to speak of and I may not, but I have Kerouac, Faulkner, Wolfe and Whitman to keep me company.

Currently reading: Jean-Jacques Rousseau by Leo Damrosch
Next up: Character Studies by Mark Singer