Nostalgia part 1

Don’t ask me why, but I was all nostalgic at work today.

Growing up, I had a great love for books. My parents would take me to the Hastings library every week or so and I’d always come away with a huge stack of books for the week. I’d read hundreds a year. It was my favourite hobby. When I was really young I would be involved in the school holiday reading programs and try to read as many books as I could so my reading list would look impressive. There were the particular sections I would make a beeline for when I got inside the library – first the recent returns then the mystery sections and the places where my favourite authors lived. As I grew up I migrated to the young adults section which was at the other end of the library, and discovered all the treasures there. At high school I would delve into the adults section every now and then, but the young adults was where I found most of my gems.

I loved staring at the spines of the books and wondering what sort of world each book contained. I could spend hours there and would often park myself in a window seat and flick through a cook book or travel book and look at all the lovely pictures. I made myself wait till I was on my bed or the couch at home before I let myself enter the world of the novels.

Sadly, I don’t read nearly as much as I used to. I blame the internet for this. Growing up we had one computer in the house, and didn’t get the internet until I was in high school. In my current flat, we each have our own computer and 500GB of wireless internet each month.

I also blame university. As soon as I hit uni, my leisure reading almost dropped off completely. Each week there were so many assigned readings to complete as well as assignments, lectures and tutorials to attend (plus a social life) that leisure reading kind of fell by the wayside. I never lost my yearning for it though, and since I’ve finished study and started working, my reading has picked up a fair bit.  

I just finished The Book Thief (brilliant) and pretty much done with Divergent too (also brilliant). Then I’m moving on to Gone Girl and then The Code of the Woosters. I have them all lined up and can’t wait to get lost in them.

While it makes me happy that leisure reading is a priority for me again, I do think it’s sad that I don’t visit the library anymore. I tend to stockpile books from book sales these days, or buy them online instead of going to the library. But if I ever have kids, I want to take them to the library every week just like my parents took me. I‘m going to make my kids love books, they aren’t going to have a choice hahahahaaahahamwahahaha ;)

xx