Discovering Books / WHEN THE READING LIGHT WENT ON

The first time I read on a serious level was when I went to prison, at 19.

I went to the prison library and realized that whatever book you picked up, there was always something in the past--an event or incident or person they talked about. But I didn’t know what they were talking about. So I decided to read history from the beginning, starting with the Sumerians, the Assyrians.

The problem was, I had never heard English spoken properly. I didn’t even know how to pronounce the words. I read with the dictionary not only for the meanings of the words but for pronunciation.

Somewhere along the line, I got interested in poetry. Someone gave me the complete works of Shakespeare.

But I couldn’t read it because it was Old English.

I had a job in the prison where I had a little office. One day this guy came up to me and told me he had this big, fat, thick dictionary. He asked if I could keep it in the office.

It was the Oxford Universal dictionary. This was my key to learning Shakespeare. I would have fought King Kong for that book. It was like a miracle that it came to me.