Why Read?

 

I am just shy of reading 35,000 pages in 2024. I've read less this year than many years. How do I know? I track my reading on a spreadsheet including:

• Date finished
• Title
• Number of pages
• Author

Why?

I read so much, I often pick up a book and by page 3, I wonder if I've read it before, especially if it's a much-published writer. With the spreadsheet, I can know for sure.

What do I read?

Almost everything but mostly fiction. Still I dig into history, biographies, politics, poetry, plays, even economics, but rarely. 

Reading lets me travel places I've been. If I want to visit Boston, I pick up a Robert B. Parker book. He'll take me by the Indian statue in front of the Museum of Fine Arts which I passed in reality zillions of times when I lived nearby or a jaunt through Harvard Square. I can revisit the old part of Damascus or once again stand at the tombs of Elizabeth 1 and Mary Queen of Scots in Westminster Abbey.

I can change seasons. On a hot day, a snowstorm in Louise Penny's Three Pines series is a welcome relief. When it is freezing, I can be in the tropics by turning a page.

There are places I will only be able to go in books: India, Japan, Africa. I would need another life to visit them all.

I meet so many people in books and learn why they do what they do, where and when they do it. When I finish many books, I miss them. 

Where do I read?

Everywhere: at the table, in the car waiting for my husband who is in a shopping mall, a place I hate to spend time even in the toilet. I've been known to respond to a knock on the door, "One more chapter." In a restaurant, if I'm alone. In a chair, on the couch or in bed.

My husband and I often read in bed, sharing an interesting word, fact or phrasing we come across.

The best place can be curled up in a chair or couch, my dog next to me and maybe a cup of tea and even a piece of cake ready to nibble. When it is a rainy or snowy day, that's even better. 

Living in a Francophone world can make getting books a bit harder. Geneva has English bookstores including the new Pages&Sips, which can also satisfy my scone urge before and after I browse.

Kiosks, often old telephone booths, are filled with books that people have left. Because of the large number of Anglophones or people for whom English is a second language as functional as their first, I've found many treasures to be devoured.

The number of pages that I've read isn't totally 100% accurate of how much I've read. Type size and spacing vary. I've a John Major biography, I would like to read, but the type face is small and the spacing is jammed making it almost painful to read. I will eventually get it on Kindle where I can make the type size legible. 

Yes, I have a life outside books. I revel in my life that includes;

• Friends
• Travel
• Nature walks
• Theater
• Concerts
• Museums
• Special events 
• Anything that catches my interest
  

It's not an either/or. It's another dimension extending the richness of my days.