Read : To examine or grasp the meaning of. Recently a friend asked us (to settle a bet) how many books we have in the house. A quick, rough count brought us to approximately 1200. That figure doesn't tell the whole story. I'm known at the library for wearing out my card. We don't buy a book and put it on the shelf here until we've already read it and know that we either want to share it, reference it, or read it again; the books on our shelves are well-worn and seldom gather dust. Reading is ubiquitous in the life of our family; we read alone and together, silently and aloud, on the porch, at lunch, in bed. It's not unusual for us to spend an evening in the living room working on various projects while one of us reads out loud. One of our boys used to take a book and a chair out to the coop and read with the chickens and the ducks in the run. For me, reading and writing are closely related. I'm a reader who writes; those two activities have si