Practically Alice

When life gets a little wobbly for me, when I look around me and there's this rather large mote of emotion or troubles or stress I begin to build myself a bridge. It takes time, care and patience; each book a brick that has to be selected carefully. Sometimes rain will lash down and threaten to flood my little island, but as yet the banks have held. With each book, I get closer to the mainland, and I get more determined to get there, a smile growing on my face. The books slot together perfectly, each adding a stitch to my patches until I become reasonably fully formed again. (No one ever is fully formed though, don't be silly!) Recently books that I wouldn't have dreamed of approaching have helped me more than I could've imagined. As cathartic as book shopping is, the real joy comes when you sit and fall into another world and then hit a passage or a feeling or a thought that reveals the sun to you. Out from a cloud, comes this clarity. And it's wonderful. Readi...

I am currently a second year English undergrad student and halfway through my second term. One thing people always warned me about was the level of reading that would be thrown at me and my fellow students - they were correct. In 2011 I made a commitment to read 100 books in one year and being a slow reader I didn't achieve that, making it to 65 instead. This past week alone I have read 9 books... nine . That's crazy for me because sixteen year old me felt like nine books in one month was an impossible feet! This is yet another thing that makes me chuckle at my past self and pat her on the back, willing her to believe that it'll all work out in the end. Reading weeks are a common thing in lots of universities and students often get slated for simply dossing about and doing nothing for a whole week. I am here to argue otherwise; I was glued to my reading for the whole week, as were a lot of my friends. I love my degree and without reading the texts, I can't learn and...