Alex

Reading a good book is like falling in love. You're happy and content while sitting there with your book in your hands, anxiuos, restless and impatient to get back to it whenever you have to put it down. You're completely unaware of your environment while reading, and can't think of anything else but the book when you're not. You can't get enough of it, neglect your friends for it's sake, and when it ends you feel as sad and empty as when a lover has left you.

I was on my way to work this morning, started working at eight (on a saturday, what a dread). Took the subway to the Central Station to take the commuter train from there. I was at the commuter train platform 07:10, the train was due to 07:20. I read my book (The bell jar) and a distant part of my consciousness noticed that a train arrived at about 07:20 (it was right before my eyes!), but it wasn't until the train started to roll away from the platform that I realized that hey, there goes my train! I called my work and said that I'd be about 20 minutes late, the next train didn't arrive in yet another half hour. Then I stood there, not anxious like I usually are the few times I'm late for work, but  very satisfied with how the morning had developed, because it meant that I could stand there for another half an hour in the morning sun reading at the platform.

30 minutes later when the next train arrived I almost missed it too. I didn't see it coming (it's easy to miss a train that rolls by before your eyes), I did however notice that a lot of people passed me at the same time and in the same direction, so I looked up, saw the train and got on it. Got off the train two stations later and walked half the ten minutes walk from the station to my work reading, until I got to the end of the chapter and was able to put the book down by sheer self-discipline.

I developed the skill of reading-while-walking when I was quite young. The whole business was a bit wobbly and I walked into things a lot before I got the knack of it at the age of twelve. By now my walking/reading is almost an art in itself. It's like bicycling, once you've learned it, you'll never forget it.

This is the severe effects good books have on me, this is why I don't read so much when I'm busy. Just like love, you avoid it when the timing is bad. Sometimes you just stumble over it, a good book, or love, and then there is nothing one can do but to ride out the storm. And when it comes to a good book, or love, no matter how bad the timing is you can never really be sorry that you've found it.



/Alex