When Reading A Book Reminds Me of My Life

I've been thinking about the reading process over the past few days. It amazes me how reading words can bring pleasure to a person. I try to understand just why that is. Have you ever been reading along and run across something in the sentences that resonates inside you and strikes a familiar chord?

Last night I was reading a short story collection thematically bound by the sport of game hunting. A scene in one of the short stories has a teenaged boy hunting squirrels in the woods. My eyes went on processing the printed words before them, but my thoughts strayed off to my own experiences while a teenaged boy doing the same activity.

I have long since given up any hunting game for the sport, preferring now to do all of my killing of living things in my crime novels. Anyway, I must have read on to the story's next paragraph, but my real attention dwelled on my hunting experiences as a kid. The short story triggered those images, and I can't say I was annoyed by my wandering from the printed page.

Part of my enjoyment in reading fiction is to find myself reminded of people and events from my own life. Usually the association only lasts momentarily and I can move on to the next part. Anyway, I went on and finished reading the short story collection, and liked it.