I have a feeling that you know how much I am smitten with books and reading.
It got me thinking about why some are always close to the written word and why others aren’t so inclined. I can’t leave home without a book or my Kindle in the handbag, I can’t catch a flight or board a train unless I am fully stocked with books… I carry enough print for all emergencies… delays, breakdowns, insomnia… I cannot be without my ‘literary friends’, ever. Perhaps some might consider this an eccentricity, I regard my attachment as essential… and I don’t feel ‘dressed’ unless I have reading matter by my side.
I have learned that life involves much waiting… waiting for appointments… waiting for children… waiting for friends… waiting at airports and train stations… just waiting. Reading helps pass the time and in a productive way… Reading can settle the nerves, lift the mood and most importantly teach. Reading can be a best friend and reading means you are never lonely.
I think my love of reading came very early on.
I am not an only child but I grew up as one… my brother was a lot older and had well and truly left home by the time I can remember… so reading was my hobby, my amusement and what I did when school was over and the play friends had gone home. There are many quiet moments in a house without siblings so it is easy for the characters of novels to become ‘imaginary’ friends. In my mind I shared in the escapades of Pollyanna, I hiked the mountains with Heidi and her grandfather in Switzerland and I was one of the Little Women… When you really immerse yourself in the words, especially as a child, the heroes and heroines are like friends, they become your family. The pages of my favourite novels were well thumbed, I was inclined to re-read the favourites over and over… I would feel sadness and loss when a great story ended… even now, I revert back to my first loves, Gone with the Wind, Doctor Zhivago, Anna Karenina… and sometimes I even re-write endings in my imagination.
University didn’t change me much… I still read for pleasure as much as was possible and then when I married I chose someone with as great an admiration for books as me.
When I had our children I didn’t know much at all about parenting… being from a small family meant that I had little experience with babies… but I was sure of one thing. I wanted our children to share our love of reading. When they were tiny I would place rag books in their cots so they could learn the idea of a ‘book’, when they were old enough to listen we would read to them every night and as soon as they could grasp the alphabet we taught them to read. These days when I see the three of them together, when we are on holiday or they are at home in France, with their noses in a book I feel very content… I try and avoid the temptation to say, ‘talk to me… stop reading… let’s chat’… and as much as I crave their company, I am happy.
Our home in France is overflowing with books… coffee table tomes, fiction, non-fiction, dictionaries and encyclopaedias… We might be seduced by our iPads and Kindles for on-the-move-convenience ( and I would not want to live without either of these… they are an incredible luxury) but this has not and will not stop us collecting the hard copies.
Books are about far more than content alone… xv
