In which I get to do yet another post on books and reading
I've often written on my blog about how much I love books and reading, and anybody who knows me well enough (or reads - and remembers - my blog-posts) will know that I read all the time, everywhere, and have at least one book that I'm currently reading in every room that I might conceivably have to be at any given point.
Now don't get the idea that I live in a 20-bedroom mansion, because I don't. But that still means that I have a minimum of 5 books on on the go. For you curious ones, that's one each in the living room, "office", bedroom, dressing room and kitchen. No, that should be 6, really, because I also have one balanced (usually open) on the banister in the landing. I'd have one in the toilet/bathroom too, but I don't. Not because of any bacteria or general "ewww, the bathroom" anxieties, but because there's no extra shelf space in there. So the banister book (or whichever I have in hand currently) does double duty as bathroom book when required. I don't think I could cope with living in a 20-room mansion.
Anyway, I came across an interesting article in The Guardian, and I understood TOTALLY what Bibi van der Zee was writing about, for the most part. For the most part, because I don't have children. But if I did, that's exactly how I'd be too, and possibly exhibiting a lot less patience.
There was one major thing with which I couldn't identify, though. (I was going to write "which i couldn't identify with" - but bloody Winston Churchill's preposition "rule" popped up in my brain waving a red flag! For all I know, the rule doesn't hold good any more, but still... sad or what? No answers reqd.)
Anyway, the thing I couldn't identify with with which I couldn't identify was what Bibi did so that she could get a newspaper article out of it - give up books and reading for a whole week!
5 comments:
i usually read only 1 book at a time. i carry it around with me, and i am big time into magazines too, so those do the rounds. can't, just can't, imagine being without a book for a whole week.
when i checked into the hospital for my babies, i had a stack of books by the bedside, and only one was a pregnancy book. not that i got to read much, but it was comforting.
my husband reads more than 1 at a time. but Oviya really is a lot like you. she not only has a book for every room (not the loo - she finds that yuck), she has a night time book and day time book in the bedroom. AND she has a book in every bag she uses - school, art, swimming, keyboard, just-like-that outing. AND then a pile in the car... she drives me up the wall. imagine if she had been born to parents who didn't dig books? i am sure they would have thrown her out of the house.
btw, how does your husband put up with books all over?
ps1: my no cap entries must be annoying you, right?
ps2: of course you can end a sentence with a preposition, if it sounds nice. :P winston!
ps3: sorry to hog your comment space.
I went without reading for ONE FULL MONTH. Many years ago and all, but still... ONE MONTH
Umm: Feel free to comment as much as you like. My comment space is unlimited! :D Good ol' Oviya, there's nothing wrong with having lots of books on the go, and making sure of having one at hand everywhere :)
As for Pete, we've come to a mutual understanding - I won't complain (much) about his cables and power supplies and other electronic blah lying around the house, and he will NEVER complain about my books :) To his credit, he doesnt.
Brin: A whole MONTH??? :-O Although I think I know why, but still...
What an interesting woman! Someone right after my own heart, although I couldn't DREAM of giving up books for even a day, however noble the cause. What I cannot do, however, is juggle multiple books - at most, I can read two simultaneously, and then too one will be fiction and the other, non fiction. I guess my mind simply does not have that many compartments!
Enjoyed reading all the comments here, it's great that there are so many kindred souls around! Umm, thank goodness for Oviya being the way she is, in this day of TV, video games, internet and other competing means of entertainment.
I also have the habit of reading at LEAST before I sleep, but of late, find myself dropping off without. Anycase, I MUST have them at my bedside or I don't feel secure. Certainly, like now, when I am not reading a book, I feel like my life is not as RICH as when I am reading a book and totally into it. Sigh.
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