I spend so much time gushing about my daughters on here, and not enough time gushing about my husband, wonderful as he is. I should do that more.

So, I thought, for Father’s Day, that I’d tackle my Hubby, the reader. He tells me he’s not as “well-read” as I am, but, truly: he is. He came to the marriage with boxes and boxes of books (regular as well as comic books), and there are many books — Watership Down, the Mary Stewart Merlin Trilogy, as well as A Prayer for Owen Meany among others — that I wouldn’t have even bothered to look at, let alone read if it weren’t for him. Sure, his reading tastes these days tend toward the scholarly (though his post on Nicholas Carr’s The Shallows was linked to over at NPR), but that’s just because his profession demands it. (And we have an unspoken agreement: I don’t read philosophy, he doesn’t read Jane Austen, and we’re all happy.) And, even now, we’ll see him around the house with his nose in a book (or reading online). It’s part of who he is, and what our family is.

But what I really love about him is that he loves to read to our girls. Specifically, the Harry Potter books, but ever since Megan was about four, he’s taken over the duty of reading chapter books to the girls. (For a while there, I read chapter books to C while he read to A; I don’t remember why that worked, but it did. He’s back on the job, now.) I’m glad that he finds satisfaction in that ritual, that he doesn’t mind rereading the Harry Potter series through over and over (going through the third time, now, not counting his own reading of it), and that he cares about books and reading enough to help me instill the same love in our daughters.

And while I’m mentioning the men in my life, I need to mention my dad. He’s a reader, too. It’s not something I remember growing up, but as I’ve gotten older, it’s something I’ve noticed about my dad: he reads. Quite a bit, too. In fact, every time I see him, he’s gushing about something new he’s read or is listening to on audio book on his commute. I know he lurks around my blog, getting suggestions, because every once in a while he’ll drop me an email telling me how much he loved a book I’d recommended (most recently it was The Graveyard Book) and asking me for other suggestions (I don’t know if he follows them, but he asks, and I appreciate that). I love being able to share this with my father.

Happy Father’s Day!