I finished Shopgirl tonight. It’s a nice little book by Steve Martin.

My wife, Annette, read it first. She doesn’t read a whole lot. In fact, it’s probably the first novel that she’s read in several years.

It’s not at all because she’s unintelligent. She just doesn’t read.

Her parents didn’t often take her to bookstores or libraries except when she needed a book for a book report. She spent her school life in a religious school where academics were subordinate to religious teaching. As one might imagine, when a book was needed for school, there were two options: a “classic” (apparently sexual or violent themes in books over 100 years old are rendered benign by their age) or a contemporary piece of Christian literature. Not the best material for helping a young person develop an interest in the written word.

One day, after we had talked about this and were out looking for something to do, she decided she wanted to go to a bookstore. There she bought Shopgirl.

A few days later, she’d finished it and had already bought another book, this one picked out by herself.

It’s easy to be cultured and learned when one has grown up in an environment that encourages these things. If, on the other hand, one hasn’t, then they have to work at it; they have to try. And most don’t.

I’m exceedingly proud of her.