BTT: Time Enough?

This week’s Booking Through Thursday topic is to answer a couple of time related questions.

Do you get to read as much as you want to read?

As with most passions my first answer is, not surprisingly, no. I often dream of taking a reading holiday. In my dream I don’t have to do anything: not see a sight, take a tour, frolic with family or hike a hill. I would lie on a gently rocking swing of some sort with a pile of books by my side and a constant supply of drinks with umbrellas in them. In the end though I’ll keep it as a fantasy because I suspect that, as with all good things, you can have too much and I’d hate for one of my life’s great enjoyments to become something mundane. I think, perhaps, that I enjoy the limited amount of reading-for-pleasure minutes that I have precisely because they are limited. I squeeze reading time out of busy days or allocate it to myself as a reward for doing something unpleasant (like housework or not falling asleep in a meeting) and so I really appreciate it. If I had an unlimited supply of reading hours I just might not appreciate them as much as I do now.

If you had (magically) more time to read–what would you read? Something educational? Classic? Comfort Reading? Escapism? Magazines?

I read a lot of stuff I’m not terribly interested in as part of my job. So any magically available time would be spent on reading for escape, comfort and entertainment. In other words more of the same sort of things as I review on this blog. A couple of years ago I had a discussion with a woman on my morning bus ride to work. We were stuck in an abnormal traffic delay and I remarked that at least we both had our books with us so it wouldn’t be too bad. She grimaced and said she was only reading hers because her a colleague had loaned it to her but she was bored to tears by it and she really wanted to be reading the Jane Green novel she’d bought some weeks before. I realised I had often wished to be reading something else myself and that was the moment I decided that I would never again struggle through someone else’s idea of a worthy book that must be read. I’ll give most things a go but when I stop enjoying the reading experience then I switch to something else.

 

BTT: I’m Thankful For…

This week’s Booking Through Thursday task is to list 7 things I am thankful for in honour of Thanksgiving Day in the US. The list doesn’t have to be about books but, because I am trying to stay on topic with this blog, my list is all book related. In no particular order today I am thankful for…

• The Book Depository- an online bookstore that offers free shipping worldwide which is a must for book addicts in the antipodes like myself
• Douglas Adams - for the many hours of enjoyment he has provided me
• My mum – for passing on her love of books (read a bit about this in my earlier post about books I’ve received as gifts)
• Aust Crime Fiction – a site I discovered earlier this year which has led to my discovery of a whole swag of new (to me) Australian crime fiction writers
• BookMooch – since discovering this site in April I’ve given away nearly a hundred books to fellow book lovers and obtained nearly 70 new (to me) books to read  
• My iPod – which allows me to ‘read’ while I’m walking, on the bus, doing the housework and any number of other activities which prevent reading the traditional way
• Edgar Allan Poe – the author of what is generally acknowledged as the first modern mystery (The Murders in the Rue Morgue) without which my favourite genre might never have existed (and also the author of my favourite poem of all time – A Dream Within A Dream)

 

Books as presents

This week’s Booking Through Thursday question struck a chord with me

What, if any, memorable or special book have you ever gotten as a present? Birthday or otherwise. What made it so notable? The person who gave it? The book itself? The “gift aura?”

Some of my earliest memories are of the books I received as presents as a child. Every birthday, Christmas and special event saw my brother and I receive a book from our parents. Well officially the books were from both our parents but in reality we know it was mum who picked them out; our dad is a voracious newspaper reader but I don’t recall ever seeing him read a book. When financial times were tough the book was the only present and when things were better the book was among the gifts received. But the book was the constant factor.

My mum’s love of reading and the fact that she treated books with such importance as to make them the first (sometimes only) gift we received for special occasions has, I am sure, led to my own love of books.

One of the books which stands out from among the many my mum has selected was Enid Blyton’s The Naughtiest Girl is a Monitor ( I found this picture of the cover of my version over at the marvellous Enid Blyton Society website). The book is one of a series featuring Elizabeth Allen who is a boarding school student where, even though she tries hard, she often gets into trouble through being misunderstood. I do recall identifying very strongly with Elizabeth in this story for what seem, now, like very childish reasons but also often imagined myself being transported from my hum-drum suburban school to the place of midnight feasts and other adventures. It’s one of the books I retained well into adulthood and only lost it during a flood at my house a few years ago.

One of the other books I remember very fondly is a hardcover book that contained both When We Were Young and Now We Are Six: two collections of poetry by A A Milne. This cover isn’t exactly like mine but it’s close. I must have read those poems a hundred times each and, even now, can recite quite a few from memory. I used to love the way the words sounded when read (with what I now know to be the right cadence) and was inspired by them to write many of my own poems (a few if which were published in the children’s pages of our Sunday paper which was cause for much childhood pride).

I received many more books during my childhood and borrowed hundreds more than that from libraries and friends but these two have always stuck in my memory. I think they must have exactly the right book for me at the time they were given. Thanks mum.