Reading

For many years I’ve been reluctant to read almost anything beyond a couple of pages. Though I love writing, my love for reading dampened over the years along with my decreasing amount of spare time.

Additionally I’ve been struggling for a long time to keep up with homework and test preparations. Both these tasks require huge amounts of reading. They do, however, not contain the quality one can encounter in ’real’ books. They are not books written with passion, rather by duty.

All the badly written and boring factual books I’ve read the last year discouraged me from reading in my spare time. I lost my entire interest in reading. For a while I thought I’d never find pleasure in it again. Whether it was written about James Bond or about Keeping It Straight, books seemed gray and boring to me.

School and their horrible factual books crushed my love for books, and the brilliance of masterpieces like Harry Potter or No Country For Old Men seemed deleted from my mind.

The 15th of January 2012 I quite suddenly decided to purchase all of Ian Fleming’s James Bond books, and start reading them one by one. I concluded that it was going to be a long term project, and my estimate and goal to finish them all in a year.

Around twenty days later I’m realising my conclusion was far from the reality. I surprised myself by finishing both Casino Royale and Live and Let Die in only ten days. By the time you read this I have started reading Moonraker, and I may even have finished it.

Somehow my forgotten love for reading sprung out as I opened Ian Fleming’s first Bond novel. Never have I read in such pace, with such passion and with such interest. Never have I felt like I’ve learned so much just by looking at some text. I was even enjoying it at the same time.

I know I’m late to the game, but I just realised: books are awesome.