Skip to main content

My thoughts on reading

Yesterday I wrote a very brief and entirely rushed blog post on reading. It was brief and rushed because I wanted to get back to my book, but now I've finished I can actually articulate myself in a manner more appropriate for the blogging world.

I have always adored reading and words and books (that was syndetic listing for you there!) and I revel in spending every single penny I own on books (it did not help my bank account much when I worked in a bookshop). In fact, I had to stop myself from buying a book last night by turning my computer off - it's sort of like an addiction. It's not like I don't have a huge to-be-read-pile already, I just love buying books and my mood is constantly always forever changing.

I don't like to be interrupted whilst I read, I like to sit down in a comfy place and just read - I don't tend to listen to music or do anything else. Especially if the book is good.

I love reading for the sake of reading and I love reading analyse too - I love seeing the deeper meaning in words and would litter my walls, heart and brain (the latter two  being internal organs, the former being my bedroom walls) with quotes if I could.

I can bore people talking about books. I can bore people by dragging them to bookshops or libraries. I can annoy people by telling them I don't like "Twilight" and then why.

I can talk about books and the amazing people that write them for days and days on end. I am on goodreads and I tweet about books and I just think reading is the best. I always have a book with me in my bag and yeah. Squeeing over.

If you haven't read a book in while, read one. Go to your library - it's free. If you don't know what to read talk to me, or any of the other book obsessed people there is on the internet. Just... read!

Keep smiling (and reading), DFTBA <3

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

"Teens don't read"

Earlier today Maureen Johnson pointed out that the view of "teens don't read" in the UK is deeply entrenched (which is a word that I now love  and had never heard before). As a teenager in the UK, the stigma around reading seems to be - to me - it's "uncool", it's "geeky", there "aren't any good books out there". I think the fact that a lot of teenagers in British schools are exposed to older literature or, perhaps, not that popular literature in lessons and forced into over-analysing and spending countless hours on 'what the author meant'. A point that was raised in this twitter discussion was that people didn't want to be seen reading, or didn't want to be seen reading certain books. It's made me realise that I never   ever ever  see people reading in the older years in my school ( ever ). Perhaps the odd year 7 (12 year old) or year 8 (13 year old) will read, but - from experience - they will probably be ...

The people I have met through ink

I read somewhere once that one of the reasons books are so great is that one can pick them up a second time and feel how you did, or remember where you were the first time you picked it up and opened it. I stand by this idea as to one of the reasons I love reading so much. I am perusing the wonderful words of Ali Smith's The Accidental for my level 1 module 'Introduction to Narrative' and whilst this module is all very technical (and trust me, I do love that!) I am really enjoying reading a novel where the characterisation leaves a bitter sweet taste in my mouth and when I close my eyes all I can see is Amber; how she looks, how she dresses, how she smells... I love that. I love that I can read 200 pages or so of one novel and suddenly there is this person inside of my head and I can't get her out. Not so long ago I read R. J. Anderson's Nomad (the second in the Swift series) and I was brought back to why I adore fantasy so much. I felt like I wanted to fly, and...

The concept of 'okayness'

Something I've noticed through both personal experience and observing other individuals is how human beings deal with the concept of being 'okay'. Generally we all have good things and bad things going on in their lives, take me for example: bad - back pain, medicine; good - family, friends, home, life, food, money... good stuff happening and change (change is an 'okay' right now rather than a 'not okay'). I happen to think that my life is  okay at the moment because, for me, the good stuff out ways the bad stuff by a milestone. Throughout a day I may become not okay but on the whole I am - on the whole I'm happy. I have noticed though, through reflection and looking at others, that we almost have this desire... this tendency to want to point at the 'not okay' bits of out lives and make them of a higher importance than our 'okay' bits. If I'm having an average day it can much more easily become a bad day than a good because I reme...