Two years ago, I got my first laptop.
Two years ago, I read what I thought I should read, rather than what I wanted to read. I slogged my way through Crime and Punishment, whizzed dutifully through The Da Vinci Code and spent a joyless few months reading Love in the Time of Cholera.
Gradually, I started to spend my evenings on my bed, surfing the internet. Whole hours would pass in the blink of an eye and I'd head to bed and feel guilty that my current book had been neglected for another day, another week. I got bogged down with books I knew were not for me and ploughed slowly and painfully through them because I have one fault-I cannot give up a book once I have started it. If I give up, I feel as if I have been defeated by the book. I live in hope that the book will improve or that there will be a hidden message which will result in me changing, my life changing. This seldom happens and I have read many 300+page books and resented. Every. Last. Word.
So, I sort of stop reading. Not completely, I read (and enjoyed) a small number of books last year and the year before but I stopped spending all my free time reading. Afterall, it's so much easier to spend an hour on Youtube or Facebook than to force yourself to read something you're getting no joy out of, isn't it?
A while ago I realised that I missed reading. A good book is a best friend. What do I gain from Facebook? Certainly, it is an excellent communication tool without which I would not be in contact with half the people I am. Often though I am just confronted with other people's lives, which from my vantage point appear more interesting, more fulfilled, more beautiful. Over the New Year, I did the annual stocktake of my life and made a few decisions, planned a few adjustments. The first was to cut back on internet time and spend my newly salvaged time for reading and crafting.
I started this blog for my project '25 Books'. I know it isn't a huge number of books (though bear in mind I am a full time worker and car commuter)-the idea is to choose and read 25 books I WANT to read this year. Halfway through the year and I have learnt to switch off my laptop and spend time with my old friends instead. In my head I have been to the mountains and fjords in Norway, run around Central Park with Murakami, sat in a church in wartorn Vietnam with a Graham Greene character and shivered courtesy of Susan Hill. It has been most fun I've had on Sunday evenings and after dinner for quite some time.
This blog was set up as a place to review the books. Near-permanent writer's block and lack of access to a working laptop have meant I am completely behind on updating my reviews here. The reviews for the first 10 books are however on their way, along with some other thoughts and photographs...
