The Atlantic Ocean is a little bit wet; the Himalayas are kind of high; I am sort of a geek.
The Lord of the Rings has been my favorite book for as long as I can remember. I’ve lost track of the number of times I’ve read it. I grew up on Tolkien, Asimov, Star Trek, and Carl Sagan.
For my wife, Betsy, it’s a bit different. From an early age, she was good at math. She liked working with computers. She was a geek – compared to her friends. But she had yet to venture into geekery’s deeper waters: the aforementioned Tolkien, Star Trek, etc.
So I’ve been turning her to the Dark Side, so to speak. Fortunately for me, she loves this stuff. She’s read (and enjoyed) Ender’s Game and Dune. We’re watching Star Trek: Deep Space Nine now.
We read The Hobbit together in college. And I do mean “together.” We sat on the couch and took turns reading the book aloud to each other, several pages at a time. We went through the whole book like that: speaking the words out loud.
Storytelling, literally.
And now, for the first time, she’s reading The Lord of the Rings. With me.
We love it. We’re both quiet people by nature, so we often find ourselves without much to say to each other. That isn’t a bad thing. But it’s nice to just sit and listen to the other person’s voice for long stretches at a time, holding them close, experiencing the story and the words in a new and intimate way.
Night after night, I get to hear my favorite book, read to me by my favorite person. And I get to return the favor.
Who in the world is luckier than me?
Brian D. Buckley 
Few people!! , but may I compare your feeling with how my husband and I feel when our children prefer to listen to ‘our’ kind of music than what’s in vogue now…imagine a 7 and a 12 year old listening to and enjoying U2, The Police even Enya…although I think I felt the luckiest when my children adopted as their favorite movies Star Wars, we can watch the six movies over and over again, the sad part is that my husband does not watch them with us 😦 … Despite that little detail I also feel very lucky… 🙂 read you soon, Alexandra
Cool! I also like The Police – or at least the one song I know, Don’t Stand So Close To Me.