I’m falling shamefully – shamefully – behind on my goal of 100 books this year. But that’s okay. It’s about the quantity, not the quality of the books. Ahhhh, I mean: the other way round. Quality, not quantity. Thank you.
Despite falling behind, I’ve been thinking about books. I know. How unexpected. But I have. They’re magic to me, and they feel even more so now.
It would be impossible to live in every country, walk in everyone’s shoes, time travel and witness history, become an astronaut etc etc, and yet through turning a page, I can be there.
‘… the odds of me becoming a teuthologist are quite low …’
– me, sadly
I’ll never forget listening to the audiobook of Scott Kelly telling me all about his year on the ISS. Even now, when I hear about the ISS, the memory of his stories drop into my brain. As if I was there. Getting congested with him. Feeling solar flairs flash behind my eyelids. (Okay, so sometimes I remember the wrong things.)
And cephalopods! Let’s be honest, the odds of me becoming a teuthologist are quite low, HOWEVER, let me flip a page and then tell everyone I know about squid’s brains. (THEY’RE LIKE A DONUT!) or the tragic woes of a cuttlefish (‘They’ll never get to see the Titanic – their bones are too brittle and wouldn’t last under the pressure. So sad.’).
Right now, I’m reading:
- a large tome about Hong Kong; I’ve just finished a lovely chapter on the Opium Wars. I’d read about this moment of British History a while ago, and it’s really pleasant to revisit it. Makes me proud to be British. (This is sarcasm.)
- two audiobooks that I swear I’ll finish (extreme side eye)
- a book about squid I’m delighting in making lots and lots of notes in … but haven’t picked up in weeks
- a library book that a Waterstones bookseller recommended oh, months ago
- an old favourite of mine, about this mild-mannered woman who finds out she is destined to fight evil sand creatures. (Typical Tuesday, you know?)
- … and an Agatha Christie, also retrieved from the library, waiting to be started, perhaps next week.
My point is … my point is, reading opens the mind, throws you into experiences – for example, I would never be able to live the life of a battle weary orc setting up a coffee shop, now would I? But Legends & Lattes lets me live that experience. Wow. Thanks, Legends & Lattes!
Don’t lock yourself away into a reading room, life’s a bit too big for that. Didn’t The Good Life And How To Live It teach us better? Life, amongst other things, is about connections. The ones we make with people. Relationships – friendship, romantic, familial – that sort of thing.
But books add flavour, they enhance, they are the je ne sais quoi that makes life just a little better. Eases the loneliness of being. Cracks you out of any mental isolation you may accidentally incur. Broadens the mind. Opens … horizons?
(I may have mixed my idioms.)
… happy reading!
of words & books 