Bookworms unite!

I went to the Big Bad Wolf books warehouse sale last week with my daughter and had such an interesting time. If anything ever gets me excited, it's a book sale. Book sales are my retail therapy equivalent to shopping for clothes and other girly stuff. For a time I actually wondered if I'm the weird one out but last week's experience at the book sale put that thought to rest. I met many, many bookworms while waiting for the book people to open their doors to us into book heaven. You know who the bookworms are - we are the ones who are there right at the front of the gates excitedly straining our necks to see what's inside and planning all our strategies. Quite ridiculous, actually. We'd compare notes and share stories, and I was very pleased to find similar-minded people who actually thought nothing of spending huge amounts of money on books because we think it's worth it. Like they say, birds (or in this case, should it be worms?) of a feather flock together ... and there were many birds (worms?) that day. Not only that, we all practically had the same thoughts on lots of other topics too - shopping for clothes, for instance. To us, it seems that if a shirt fits - great! Now can we have all five colors of the same shirt and get this shopping over with! It's so different when we talk about books. The mood changes entirely - everyone gets excited and we're all suddenly talking like old friends. Someone commented that bookworms are not environmentally friendly since trees have to be cut down to feed our habit. That's true, but a bookworm will never give up the joy of holding the book in their hands. Oddly, we just don't find the same joy by reading a book over the computer screen. It somehow takes away a very substantial part of the fun of reading a book. We bought lots of books at the book sale but it just never seemed to be enough. We are eagerly waiting for the next sale again and next time I will be even more prepared! For the time being, I am eager and happy to just lose myself in the books that we purchased last week.

A family of bookworms

Books have always been an integral part of my life, partly stemmed from the fact that as a child, toys were a luxury my family could ill afford. My toys were almost always dismembered remnants of what it should have been so I had no other choice but to look elsewhere for entertainment. My fondest childhood memories centered around my favourite books, books that were everywhere in the house, brought home by my father who was then working for a publishing company. They were not only my source of entertainment, they were also very much a source of knowledge in my growing up years. I remembered reading for the first time the Pharoahs of Egypt and seeing Tutankhamun's gold sarcophagus in all its splendour. I was immediately hooked and my fixation with the ancient Egyptians has continued to this day.

As I grew, it was only right that my fondness for books grew too. I started buying books and soon, I had amassed quite a collection. I loved my books, old as they may be. Each one of them have given me so much joy. They were a form of escapism for me, to escape from the realities of life for a short while. My reality is not at all bad, of course, but I do believe it's healthy to just let go once in a while. You see, it's a little different for me when I read, for the characters from the stories come to life in my mind's eye and for a time even, I lived and breathed the stories that I read. I can see, hear and feel the characters so vividly they almost seemed real. It can be quite disorienting at times, but that just adds to the excitement. I loved books that are very descriptive because it just makes it so much more real for me. I've spent many a sleepless night for that reason.

I am not limited to just a few choices when it comes to books. I'll read anything - be it fiction or non-fiction. My choice of book depends very much on the mood I'm in although I draw the line at "trash". I read on a wide range of subjects - autobiographies by famous world leaders are a favourite. I also like thrillers and conspiracy theories that keep me on the edge. I have no qualms reading horror books either although I'm quite the scaredy-cat. I have always had such a morbid fascination with vampires and I've a collection from Bram Stoker's Dracula to Anne Rice's Lestat to my current favourite, Stephenie Meyer's Twilight Saga. I guess it wouldn't be very far off-mark to say I'm always well-read.

My love of reading have rubbed off quite positively on my eldest daughter. She was introduced to books at 5 months old and she's loved them ever since. She's 8 now, and not a day goes by without her reading at least a page a day. Obviously I've amassed quite a collection of children's books too. Our collection has many an award winner as well as encyclopedias and children classics. I've recently introduced books to my youngest, who's almost 6 months old. Hopefully, in time she'll enjoy reading with us too.

Recently I gave away boxes of my old books to my hubby's church library. I did it with a heavy heart because those books were such a huge part of my past. I will take comfort that instead of languishing in the store room packed into boxes, those books will now be a part of someone else's life. I hope it will bring immense joy to the reader, whoever that may be, just as it had for me.