If you teach yourself to read at 3, because you need to know what happens next in the story and you can't wait until bedtime, chances are you'll grow up a reader. When you have parents who love reading and also read everything they can find - your path is certain.
I read everything. Not just books, papers, magazines, web sites and blogs - but cereal boxes, billboards, hoardings, adverts, programme and film credits, clothing labels, food packaging, the back of the wine bottle and, if necessary, the strange and random literature that falls out of the Sunday supplements.
When I feel sad, I read. When I feel happy, I read. And for everything in between, there are words to provide solace, inspiration, friendship, reassurance.
Every night before sleep claims me, and in one way or another throughout the day that precedes bedtime, I read. 32 years have passed since I first managed to make sense of the squiggles on the page, but the excitement has never faded. Reading is my favourite thing in the whole world (people excluded) which is why it has pride of place in this blog.
Reading is my first love. 364 to go...
Very precocious you. GCB and words are clearly meant to be.
ReplyDeleteNB don't you even think that this reading business can get you off the hook of the 'writing of the novel' business.