Hardy Boys, Used book shops, and comic books

Warren Buffet once made a killing by buying Coca-Cola when it was a beaten-down stock. It was out of character for him to buy a stock when he couldn’t get a controlling majority of shares. Previous to that, he had done a similar thing with a much smaller company. But when he was asked about why he took the risk with Coca-Cola, he alluded to the smaller company he had purchased previously. “If it wasn’t for that, I would never have considered buying Coca-Cola.”

Well, the Hardy Boys may not have been classical literature, but I had a whole set of Hardy Boys books that were just for me, and I took some pride in having a little set of “adventure” books. If it wasn’t for the Hardy Boys, I might never have considered The White Mountains, which led me to J. R. R. Tolkien, which led me to Ray Bradbury, which (oddly enough) led me to W. B. Yeats, which opened up a whole world of poetry. It took countless side trips to used book shops to support my reading habit, but that is how I fished through authors and genres to find things that really captivated me.

Now I don’t have to spend much time with a book before I know if it has promise. And there are books that have really made me a better person. When I first went to college I picked up a book called Bradshaw on the Family, which was about healing dysfunctional families. Bradshaw was a bit hokey and I wouldn’t really recommend the book now. But it helped me put my upbringing in perspective and made my expectations of my parents (and anyone’s parents) a bit more realistic.

I read Dr. Martin Luther King’s writings and it helped to frame my perspective for my work with college students. I read a book called The Skilled Facilitator that helped me build practical skills to mediate and run meetings in any setting. I read a series of books about communication skills by Deborah Tannen that helped me approach conflict in ways that addressed problems rather than escalating conflict. I read numerous books about the psychological study of stress and happiness that have helped me manage stress and appreciate the many good things I have in life.

One of the questions psychologists say helps predict academic achievement is: Were there 100 or more books in the house you grew up in? There certainly were in my house, and that’s where it all started: National Geographic, WORLD magazine, Little Golden Books, Curious George, and later those used book shops and stacks of comic books. Some of the richness of my life, the quality of my decisions, and certainly my professional success can be attributed to my long history with the written word.