Entropic State Report 12th August 2023

As you know’ll if you’re a listener, this podcast was founded on the back of my early journeys through genre fiction as prompted by the books I’d see on, and later receive from, Pops’s little coffee table. It was these wonderful, colourful, garish titles that informed my reading habits for the next 40 or so years. Right up until today in fact.

But I was already a reader. And that was down to one person. My mam.

One of my favourite memories of childhood is coming home from primary school on a lunch time and, along with my two older sisters, sitting rapt as Mam read us the next chapter of The Hobbit. Then she would send us back to school, fed and read, with heads full of trolls and goblins and Middle Earth.

For almost all of my 51 years on the planet, books have been an intrinsic part of my being and that’s down to Mam.

Pops may have influenced my tastes further, but Mam MADE me a reader. In fact she made readers of us all, including STIMBOTCLASSIC, whom she wed in 1967.

Having spent a lot of time back at the family home this last couple of weeks, it struck me how similar our places look.

Books everywhere.
On shelves.
In piles.
On chair arms with bookmarks.

She was reading Shikasta by Doris Lessing again, but it wasn’t alone. It was with a couple of others in her to-read/being read piles, alongside some notes she’d made about her garden, her other great pastime.

I barely remember a conversation of ours that didn’t feature at least some mention of what we were reading, or going to read. Phil had even suggested she appear on Breakfast in the Ruins, we just needed to pick a book.

Our last conversation was about what she wanted for her birthday.

Book vouchers.

Only yesterday I glanced at my birthday presents from her and dad from just five or so weeks ago.

Books.

In every way though, she herself was the gift that kept on giving.

So I’ll keep on reading. And remembering. Because she gave us everything.

And I’m sure, over in the Undying Lands, she’s reading right now.

Anne Stimpson 07.08.46 to 27.07.23