填空题 When I am asked, "What made you want to be a writer?" , my answer has always been, "Books". First and foremost, now, then, and always, I have been passionate about books. From the time I began to read, as a child, I loved to feel their heft in my hand and the warm spot caused by their intimate weight in my lap: I loved the crisp whisper of a page turning, the musky odor of old paper and the sharp inky whiff of new pages. Leather bindings sent me into ecstasy. I even loved to gaze at a closed book and daydream about the possibilities inside—it was like contemplating a genie"s lamp. Of course, my favorite fairy tale was A Thousand and One Nights—imagine buying your life with stories ! And my favorite cartoons were those where animated characters popped out of books and partied while the unsuspecting humans slept. In books, I could travel anywhere, be anybody, understand worlds long past and imaginary colonies in the future. My idea of a bargain was to go to the public library, wander along the bookshelves, and emerge with a chin-high stack of books that were mine, all mine, for 2 weeks—free of charge.At that time I didn"t think of writing as an activity people admitted doing. I had no living role models—a "real" writer as a long-dead white male, usually with a white beard to match.