To read, but what to read- that is the question
“To read or not to read” – that has never been the question where I’m concerned.
Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer the boredom of tedious, uninteresting novels
Or to take arms against a sea of yawn-inducing writings
And by opposing, end them. To read- to sleep no more!” (with due apologies to Shakespeare!)
I have always been a bookworm, from the time I had to scrounge for books in not always well-stocked libraries and read undercover to avoid disapproving parents, to the present- where books are available online, offline, on paper, on screens and god only knows how many other formats and versions. Of course, the obstacles that come in the way of my reading now, are mostly age-related i.e. A shorter attention span, weaker eyesight and all sorts of sundry aches and pains caused by sitting or sprawling for too long in one position with a book in hand!
Browsing for books also has never been easier; or less fun. I don’t deny that there are definite advantages to checking out books from the comfort of one’s home; where the only effort required is to move the mouse and click on the cursor, or to visit plush, air-conditioned stores where books are neatly sorted, categorized and attractively displayed. But for someone who has spent years scrabbling in second-hand/ pavement bookstalls, musty libraries, book fairs and exhibitions, hunting for missing treasure, the thrill is missing.
My tastes in reading have also been fluctuating quite a bit in the past few years and of late there hasn’t been much that really appealed. The younger me transitioned smoothly from Enid Blytons to PG Wodehouse while gobbling up a host of comic characters in between and then plunged into the world of romances, only to emerge decades later. En route, I also managed to sample classics, westerns, plays, poems, essays and anything else that caught my fancy.
I did go through a ‘dry’ phase when all I could read was magazines, newspaper headlines, Facebook posts and email forwards, caused no doubt, by having the attention span of a goldfish! From there I advanced to what my children called a ‘snarky’ phase because I was reading mostly books with titles like ‘Grumpy Old Women’, ‘The very Grumpy Guide to the most annoying aspects of everyday life’ Anthologies of insults and put-downs, and anything and everything written by Scott Adams (the creator of Dilbert) and Dave Barry-another satirist and humourist.
But now, the bookworm in me seems to be reviving. My TBR (to be read) pile is growing steadily and consists of books on varied topics and I’ve actually started checking out book reviews to help me add to it.
As I look back and reflect on my reading phases of the past, I realise that it’s been a journey of self-discovery and that what I chose to read mostly showed what I was looking for-in life and within myself.
And so, the journey continues. The bookworm is slower and wiser, more bespectacled than ever but just as determined to read its way through life!
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