daily headspa

If Jane’s quote doesn’t make any sense to you, then this is not your post; don’t bother reading any more.

To be honest, I’ve never understood people for whom, ‘I’d rather be reading’ (the slogan for the UN’s International Literacy Year in 1990) is not a mantra. When sitting on a train reading I sometimes look up at people who are just sitting and wonder what they might be thinking. In these situations I find myself alternating between horror that they are wasting precious reading time and envy that they seem to be so at home with themselves that they enjoy being at home with themselves. But I soon bury myself back in my book and try not to let the thoughts disturb me too much...

With the advent of the printing press and the availability of comparatively cheap books, there was a lively debate as to what would happen to the young once exposed to books for hours every day.

One view had it that their minds would go to mush because they would not longer be stretched to memorize; they would become lazy and indolent with everything laid out before them between the covers. Our youth will, some thought, spend hours by themselves staring at the printed page rather than being outside interacting with others and the natural world. They will forget how to be human...

Anyway, enough of dusty old arguments that have no relevance whatsoever to our current situations.

Four ways to know if you are a compulsive reader:

One - you keep lists of books you want to read - mine is, and I’ve just given it a rough count, more than 300 books long. Some of them have waited patiently on the list for more than a decade.

Two - you have at least one book under the front seat of your car or in the bag you usually have with you, just in case you forget one of your current books and are caught somewhere with a spare moment.

Three - the only way to pass a second hand book store without going in is to speak to yourself quite sternly for the time it takes to leave the shop behind you.

Four - You have at least four and more likely 8 books on the go at any one time, covering a variety of topics and styles so that you always have a book that suits your reading mood.

If this is you, my advice would be, don’t fight it, abandon yourself to your fate and start another book and remember, that the current figures say that at least 1,000 new books are published every day, so get reading already!