The Joys of Reading

I am not, by any stretch of the imagination, a decisive sort of person. Especially if I’m not given options. Give me a finite number of options, and I can choose. There are limits to the decision, which is half the battle.

But ask me to, for example, name my favourite book, and I will dither.

Because it’s a bit like being asked how long a piece of string is. There are just so many contenders. I’ve been reading an awfully long time, and I grew up without a TV, so there was just so much time to fill. My mother is still, kindly (though increasingly grudgingly), giving house-room to some of my childhood library and university books. One day I shall reunite them with the library I am building elsewhere.

I can’t remember not reading, or not having my own library card. We were signed up early, and the town-library was our normal meeting-place for shopping trips. Or the local Ottakar’s, as it then was. And now I have a collection of library-cards, and almost all the ones I need for a map of the South-West of England. Just missing Cornwall.

Reading took me to new and wonderful places, to worlds I reimagined in my games, and gave me friends other than my siblings. Yup, imaginary playmates all round. Some stories and characters taught me new skills - I spent quite some time honing my observational skills after discovering Sherlock Holmes - and others taught me valuable life-lessons. Primarily to be wary of the overly-smooth. They’re probably too good to be true. This was reinforced by the horrible Rob storyline in The Archers a few years back. Too charming for words, apparently, and poor silly Helen got sucked in.

Of late, I have reread more than I have read, and I have, as most bibliophiles do, a whole stack of To Be Reads, some of which have been waiting patiently for some years now. My Kindle’s TBR list is also growing. Life seems to have slowed my reading down. Or my collecting has sped up. One or the other, perhaps both. I am, though, generally more content to wait for books to turn up in charity shops these days.

I read all sorts, though. Fantasy, romance, the disparagingly-named chick-lit, historical, murder. Fiction, non-fiction, biography and autobiography. I have a collection of Beowulfs and Volsunga Sagas, Nancy Drew and Poirot. Singles and series.

More than anything, I read to be entertained, to feel the whole gamut of human emotions (because books and their characters are frequently more real than Real Life), and to experience things I wouldn't otherwise experience. Like magic. Or places I may never visit. Like the Shire.

Actually, that’s not true. The South-West is very Shire-like, and some of us are short enough to be Hobbit-height.

Usually, my answer to the favourite book question is a duology: Nancy Mitford’s The Pursuit of Love and Love in a Cold Climate. I’m less keen on the third of narrator Fanny’s tales, Don’t Tell Alfred, largely because favourite characters don’t feature so much in it.