I am a bookworm. If I could, I would spend all my time with books, yellowed or frayed, dog-eared or shiny and new, from the library or from the bookstore.
I could snuggle inside a book all day and feel the words wrap around me. My bookshelf is an old-cane one, that has borne the weight of millions of words that have been lovingly chiseled into beautiful books.
Each time I read a great book, I pause and wonder about the journey of words from the author’s mind to the printed word – scratched or deleted, replaced or enhanced! The fountain of ideas never seems to dry up. Amazing books are being conceived and written even at this moment.
The pleasure of reading reigns supreme in my life – reading a good book, by the window, on my easy chair, with a fresh mug of coffee. Idyllic! Rain lashing outside would be an added bonus.
Like caffeine-shots, I need my book-shots every night. My books are scattered around our home. Their covers, spines and smells invigorate me.
My love affair with books started when I was in grade three. Every Sunday, my sister and I would accompany our dad to the vegetable market. From there, we would drop in at my dad’s brother’s house. Enroute to my uncle’s home, there was a book shop. My dad would buy us a comic each. We would finish reading one comic each in our uncle’s house. Once we got back home, we would swap our books and read the other’s. What joy!
When a library opened close to where we lived, my sister and I were there at opening time during our holidays, waiting to get in and borrow books. We would then run home to read.
We read late into the night, with our granny’s voice chiding us to sleep. To hide the fact that we were reading late into the night from our parents, we would put a thick towel under the door, to prevent light from escaping through the crack at the bottom.
There is always a book that travels with me in my handbag. I unabashedly bend my head to look at book titles that people are reading on the train or in the airport.
I check online for lists like ‘100 books to read before you die’, just to be sure I don’t miss the good ones.
Books continue to shape my life in so many many ways. If there is one legacy I want to leave behind for my children, it would be my books. My happiest moments are those, when I see my children finish a great book and look up with that blissful expression- an expression that only other bookworms would understand.
Books, books everywhere but not enough time to read.
Feel the same.. you put it to words so beautifully!!!
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Thank you Sugandhi…
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Great! Compliments from another bookworm! 🙂 Loved this post!
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Thank you
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Thanks for this post. I love to read, too. I’ve run across free bookcases on this long journey I’ve been on. People have set up bookcases where you can bring a book and exchange for a new one, just take one, just leave one….whatever. I carry around these people I’ve read about in the novels and wonder how their lives turned out 🙂
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Thank you. The free bookcase concept is lovely, though I haven’t seen it. Will be a cool thing to do…And yes, the people from books, they haunt us …don’t they?
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Nothing like the smell of an old book. So much better reading an actual book than a screen. 🙂
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Yes! Can’t imagine reading a book digitally….there would be no smell or memories then. A book is a book is a book is a book😆
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The worst part of reading digital is, everything appears on the same area..
Whereas, there are few quotes from our favourite book, which linger in our mind along with a visual of the exact position of the test on the page, the font, the marks on the page etc.. That can never ever be possible in digital media..
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That is so beautiful. Remembering our favourite parts and the way the paper was creased, food stains sometimes (I need a book to.read when I eat). Give me a frayed, worn out book anyday…Thank you so much
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You are most welcome!! 🙂
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