Obsession with reading

Reading has been a lifelong obsession, for both myself and my sister. When we were teenagers Dad was concerned that we spent far too much time on reading, and I can remember him making a rule during summer months, that we had to spend a certain amount of time out of doors. Happily, books are portable! There was also the rule about not reading while we were eating, so the backs of cereal boxes became reading fare, although a poor substitute, to say the least.

But how wonderful is the world of reading. I can be totally transported to another place and time, made to laugh or cry, made to think about things outside my everyday life. Reading can be a companion, if no suitable human one is available, and is a great way to spend the tram ride to the city. However, these days it's hard to tune out the morons who loudly carry on their most private conversations in public places such as trams, via the scourge of the 21st century, the mobile phone. But let's not get started on that...

And then there is bedtime reading. When we bought our current house more than 10 years ago, we were going to dismantle the built-in bedside drawer units so that we could fit our own bedroom suite in. We ran out of time to do that before we moved in and never got around to it since, and how glad I am. Because at the ends of the units, next to the bed, there are two open shelves, so we each have a mini bookcase. This is ideal for keeping a collection of books I've got out from the university library as well as the local library. I also keep there my collection of bookmarks. My favorites are the set of exquisite cut out paper bookmarks I got in Hong Kong, one for each sign of the Chinese zodiac.

When I was younger, I used to read a book to the end, whether I was enjoying it or not, which I've since realised is silly. There are so many good books to read, and life is too short. Speaking of which, there is a book that seems to reflect this feeling of life being too short to read all the books you'd like to......

About an hour has passed since I last wrote that because I needed to look in all my bookshop catalogues and newspaper clippings of books to read, for the title. And of course I got sidetracked with many other titles which I then had to search for in library catalogues... Anyway, the title is "So many books, so little time" by Sara Nelson. I've tracked it down but will now have to wait for the local libraries to re-open.

I guess I'd better do something else for a while, like bake a cake.