I would like to have the superpower of being able to touch a book and then gain all the knowledge out of that book without spending hours and days reading it. ↗
My horizon on humanity is enlarged by reading the writers of poems, seeing a painting, listening to some music, some opera, which has nothing at all to do with a volatile human condition or struggle or whatever. It enriches me as a human being. ↗
I'd begun reading Crumb shortly before that, and other underground stuff, so that was an influence to some degree. Of course the Marvel and DC comics, they had been my main interests in my teenage years. ↗
Much of my reading time over the last decade and a half has been spent reading aloud to my children. Those children's bedtime rituals of supper, bath, stories, and sleep have been a staple of my life and some of the best, most special times I can remember. ↗
You can learn as much about the history from reading about the present as you can vice versa, that is learning about the present through history, which is what I do for a living. ↗