The Bookworm

There are very few people ( I believe) that have a love affair with books , as I have had .There probably are more than I naively estimate but very few who I've encountered .I come from a family who (mostly) love books and who have nurtured this adoration I have .This obsession with the almost woody scent of the pages bound together is insatiable. It is filled with delighting in older books that are slightly richer in scent with softer pages that have been held before to the crisp scent of just unwrapped and virginal pages of a new book where the ink feels minutely raised off the page. It is the inscription on the front leaf , maybe a birthday wish or the current owner (I always write my name and the year I received the book in a corner of this page) that sprinkles enchantment on the book (still unread) or the nostalgia of buying and experiencing a new story.

I've detailed before how I was introduced to reading but it is how I took to books and the large supply of them , that probably shaped me for the rest of my life . It's strange how all my favourite things to write about tie back to books ,be it the books I find in flea markets or the ones I read with the stain of mulberry still faintly on my fingertips or (this was the most common) the books I voraciously went through on rainy days.

I think everyone knew how much I liked books, because now and then someone would send a book with my mother for me to read or enquire at family events about what I was reading . I don't think I spent any part of my childhood without a book nearby , I stuck to the classics or books that were older because early on I developed a love for the style of writing and the references to a time long past . Little Women , Black Beauty or Great Expectations were regular books I read when I was much younger.

Once ,my uncle brought a box of books (I recall it being from somewhere where the owners where getting rid of old stuff as they were moving) home . They provided some of the nicest company on a winters night , when I sat with them and a heater to spend the night , sometimes only sleeping as I watched the sun rise .The books in that box took a while to get through , all the inscriptions were obviously a bit old or illegible in the faded cursive script .But I read every single one .

The local library was another favourite spot but I would always accrue fines for forgetting to bring a book back (often borrowing piles of books using 3 different cards ) until I had read all the good ones and couldn't find any new tastes to delight my palate .But every Saturday after dancing or piano ( that is another story altogether really) we would go and with my head tilted at 45 degrees I would scour the shelves for something new .Until nothing new took my fancy anymore and I moved to other sources .

And then there was Mum and Dad ,who bought me books because I would spend all time at the mall looking through bookshops .and would start reading the new book as soon as we got into the car . It was Dad who suggested many books when I was at a loss and who would talk to me about these books we both read (many times leading to a telling off by my mother and sister who had not been able contribute at all) . I loved those discussions because I felt like a person , not merely a being who was present .It was when no one could say I was wrong for thinking what I thought because they hadn't felt the book as I did .I began to see people a lot better as I didn't expect only good or only malice in everyone .They taught me about the facts of life through the many eyes of people who had lived in different era's or circumstance .

I don't think my father ever handed me a book that had no significant impact on my life .They all did in some way or the other .

I guess I could end by saying that I started reading books to learn about this open ,unknown world around me , but by reading them I soon began to understand the people in my life and how to deal with things better .They showed me how beautiful something as simple as a river in the morning light could be ,or how the smallest dreams could manifest into something much more .