Frank, aka PCGuyIV, is back with another episode of Truthful Tuesday. The idea behind Truthful Tuesday is for us to respond to the question (or questions) Frank asks and to be 100% truthful in our responses. No glib answers, no funny business, no fibs. Just raw honesty.

For this week’s Truthful Tuesday, Frank wants to know…

Would you consider yourself a reader? Who are some of your favorite authors? Do you prefer more intricate prose, similar to that of Regency and Victorian era English literature, such as the works of Jane Austen, or do you prefer the tighter and more direct offerings of early to mid-20th century American authors, such as Hemmingway? Or maybe something else? What authors best represent the style of writing you prefer?

I admit that my days of reading a lot of books are over. I used to be an avid reader of all kinds of books, from Tolkein-like fantasy adventures to Asimov-like science fiction, King-like horror, Fleming and Ludlum-like spy thrillers, and Clavell and Michener-like historical novels.

My book reading heydays were in the late sixties through the early nineties. To be clear, that’s not referring to my age, but to 20th century decades. I was reading books every chance I got. In the early days of working, I would read on my commutes (bus, train, or subway), and when I started flying a lot for my jobs, airport and airplane time was spent with a book in hand.

One particular book that stands out in my mind is Richard Adams’ “Watership Down.” In 1976, my brother-in-law gave me a girl’s phone number and encouraged me to call her. I was not keen on fix-ups, but I finally did give her a call. At one point during our initial telephone conversation, the girl asked me if I had read any good books lately and I had just finished reading “Watership Down.”

She asked what it was about. I began to talk about a book about the lives and struggles of a group of rabbits that the author had anthropomorphized (giving them human characteristics). I was almost expecting her to hang up before I finished telling her about the book, but instead, she listened intently. I asked her if she’d be interested in meeting someday for coffee and she agreed. Three days later we met for coffee and when I saw her she was holding a copy of “Watership Down” in her hands. She had just finished reading it and was totally enthralled by it. Two years later, we got married.

But I digress. By the mid-nineties, devices like laptops and BlackBerries had become ubiquitous among the white-collar working class, and what had been my prime book reading time (commuter train, airport/airplane) had shifted to reading and sending emails on my BlackBerry and to working on my laptop.

And so ended my days of being an avid book reader. I was sure that once I retired, I’d get back into book reading. I did read Octavia Butler’s saga, “The Patternist” series, which I very much enjoyed. But technology had different plans for me. These days I’m instead on my iPhone reading my newsfeed, the sports scores, and, of course, doing WordPress.