Books

Books! I love books. Always have, always will. Damn the internet and it’s “but-you-can-find-anything-and-everything- online” zombie followers. Of course it’s useful. But nothing beats a good book. The touch, the feel, the smell, the comfort of a book cannot compare to anything else in the world.

The trick about reading for me is that I like to read what I like to read when I want to read. I can’t be forced to read something because everyone says it’s good or because it’s a best seller or because it’s the “in thing” to be reading a particular book. (This explains why I was never very good at studies, because I was forced to read all them geography and history books – let’s not even talk about chemistry and physics! This also explains why I don’t like work that much because again, I am forced to read things that I don’t necessarily want to read at that point in time.)

I love the English language. It’s not my mother tongue but it’s the first language I ever learned and I express myself the best in English. With the exception of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Moby Dick (my favourite book of all time!!) I prefer English authors. (No, I am not suffering from a colonial hangover.) From Enid Blyton to Thomas Hardy, Charles Dickens, Agatha Christie and now Sophie Hannah and Val McDermid.

Apart from an intriguing story line that will take me to places I have never been to before (and some places I never will, except in my head), good authors also inspire me with their poetic prose, wit and artistic use of words. Some things are said so concisely yet beautifully, it lifts my spirit – “...would you bypass curious in your haste to get to furious?” (Sophie Hannah, The Carrier).

If only there was more time to indulge. Now isn’t that a complaint you often hear.