If I started thanking all the people I owe thanks to, I could be here the rest of the day and y’all would stop reading around about page sixty-zillion, if not before.

So I want to instead write briefly about how much I appreciate the readers in my life.

In that, I don’t just mean just the people who read what I write now — who, yes, I am very thankful for. So, yeah, thanks to all of you who take a moment to read these ramblings, or my ramblings elsewhere, or my books.

But in the U.S., it’s the day after Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving week is a time that’s usually about family for those of us lucky enough to have family (which, incidentally, I like to remember that plenty of people don’t). So I’m going to take a moment to be thankful for the readers in my family who taught me, early in life, to love reading — by doing it themselves.

I’m thankful for my two awesome older sisters Theresa and Lisa, who taught me to read — I’ve never been quite clear on how, but probably by showing me stuff and pronouncing it for me. I could reportedly read by age three, owing largely to their tutelage.

Later, Theresa’s appreciation of books growing up helped reinforce the importance of reading for me. Her description of The Diary of Anne Frank as “one of those books you keep hidden in your desk and sneak glances at when you’re supposed to be doing schoolwork” encouraged me to think, “Hey, maybe I could get away with that” — and I could! The late Ms. Frank’s dairy scarred me for life, yes, but I don’t begrudge Anne or Theresa that…there are some things in life that are more damn important than school, and I think The Diary of Anne Frank is one of them. As the oldest, she would often be the first to read books and then pass them on to Lisa and me, and her excitement over them was always infectious.

A bit later, Lisa was a fiend for Agatha Christie. By describing Dame Agatha’s plots to me when I was young, she taught me to love both murder and the British — two love affairs that I enjoy to this day. I was later guided by Lisa’s enthusiasm into the writings of Anne McCaffrey (who, as most of you probably know, the world lost this past week), Madeline L’Engle, Roger Zelazny (whose (semi-)final Amber novel The Courts of Chaos she just about went nuts waiting for) and C.S. Lewis — particularly when she suggested I try The Magician’s Nephew first instead of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Nephew remains my favorite Narnia book (even ahead, by about half a nose, of Dawn Treader).

My wonderful mother, a teacher, used to wait until school breaks to start the new James Michener book — because she knew she’d be up all night glued to the pages. I saw her eagerly reading many other books — usually big fat ones that portrayed sweeping, glorious vistas of history and drama in far-flung, “exotic” parts of the world. She would talk to my sisters and her friends excitedly about these books, and her friends sort of formed a de facto book club, which I overheard frequently. I learned through my mother that reading wasn’t some dull, drab way to learn about fractions; it was a gutsy assault on experience that led to a greater appreciation of life and a compassion for the many variants of the human condition.

My mother’s reading in Christian spirituality also represented, to me, the timber of the Catholic church in America in those days. It was heavily influenced by the hippie movements of the ’60s, filled with compassion and the importance of ministry to those less fortunate than us. Reading was where my mother found the sort of spiritual intellectualism that showed broad-thinking, inspired and anti-dogmatic Christian reason. It fed her mind and soul with compassion, faith, and appreciation, and, because she loves to talk about what she’s reading, helped feed mine. That she and I followed different paths of faith seems largely irrelevant to me. The important thing is that she taught me to appreciate the words of those far wiser than me in guiding me toward compassion and respect….and also to keep my own counsel, because no book is Gospel, not even the Gospels. She taught me both to trust my own reason and to open myself to the spiritual quests of other people to make myself a better person.

My father loved to read just as much as my mother did. When he was in law school, and I was a tyke, I’d sit there and “study” with him — which consisted of imitating the way he highlighted books with those little yellow pens. For years my mother kept some of my kids’ books, which had been meticulously highlighted in imitation of my father’s law books. But I also watched him tear through massive tomes, from enormous thrillers to books about politics. I always found kinda daunting the way he’d devoured enormous political thrillers in one or two sittings…until I started doing it myself.His love of James Clavell’s books was something I inherited, and to this day that style of hard-boiled military-political-espionage thriller is something I just can’t get enough of. I’m even in the middle of writing a few of them.

Dad also read (and reads) many serious works of political and economic history and theory, just for LOLZ. He taught me that even those “smart” books that seem daunting at first can be a breeze if you let ‘em be, and that learning is even more entertaining than entertainment. His passion for the complicated secrets of history, particularly military history, became the germ from which grew my lifelong history-obsession.

Two of my uncles also helped me learn to love reading. My oldest uncle, Jerry, was very much an aspiring writer and a great admirer of comic books. I borrowed his paperback editions of Robert E. Howard’s Conan books, as well as many copies of the old Marvel Conan series and The Savage Sword of Conan, which I adore to this day. Later, on my own, I would discover Howard’s other writings, and come to appreciate just how profound a craftsman the world lost when the 30-year-old Howard killed himself — and I think my willingness to give ’30s writing a chance dates to Jerry’s early appreciation of Howard.

My uncle Dennis, another aspiring writer (now working on his second novel — congratulations!), was also an eager fan of comic books, and I was never quite clear who owned what when it came to the incredible collection of DC Comics from the ’50s and early ’60s I was allowed to pore through whenever I visited Grandma’s house. My grandpa called them “Funny books,” an affectation I loved at the time and love even more now. Dennis also loved science fiction, and his enthusiasm for Heinlein, Asimov, H.G. Wells and Edgar Rice Burroughs led me to many books that heavily influenced me. He later shared the rest of my family’s love of C.S. Lewis, Roger Zelazny, and many other writers.

So, while I’m thankful for everyone who loves books, and every member of my family, those are the six people who most concretely taught me to love reading when I was very, very young. Without them. I would not have the passion for books that I have today. Books may look markedly different than they used to, but the enjoyment is the same.

Mind you, I think each and every one of them would be horrified if they could see my “office,” which is to say the ten-by-twelve room into which I cram thousands of books and occasionally myself, when I can kick enough books out of the way of the door to wrestle myself into the room. They’d realize, and perhaps are just now realizing, that they helped create a monster.

But then, I’ve always liked to think I’m their kind of monster.

So Happy Thanksgiving, and more power to all of you out there who are teaching the kids in your life to love reading.