I like to read, walk, cook, and travel to cities. We live in the country, so we miss museums and the bustle of city life.

I read my books aloud before they were published.

With twins, reading aloud to them was the only chance I could get to sit down. I read them picture books until they were reading on their own.

I was a great reader of fairy tales. I tried to read the entire fairy tale section of the library.

Novels by British writers are among my favorites because our family has enjoyed travel in England and because they are written with an economy of words as if they were written with a pen instead of a computer. Penelope Fitzgerald is a favorite.

My mother always kept library books in the house, and one rainy Sunday afternoon - this was before television, and we didn't even have a radio - I picked up a book to look at the pictures and discovered I was reading and enjoying what I read.