Amy BoughnerI have a very great desire right now to read all the things.
I have so many books on my shelf that I want to get to. Some have been sitting there for years and some are brand new.
I’m currently reading three books and I want to be reading more. I want to have read them. I want to dive in and experience them all. Now.
This is made more difficult by the fact that I am currently re-reading my favourite series, which consists of seven books. I actually mentioned this to a lady at Mill Street Books in Almonte – where I always, always find something to read, and usually something for the kid too – and she said that she never re-reads books, because there are just too many new books out there.
But I have found, in my life, that there are books I enjoy but will never read again – books that can only surprise you once – and there are books I hold onto as dear friends. There are books I want to read at different stages of my life, to see different perspectives on the characters and events.
I even have books that I may never read again, but they will forever stay on my shelves as fond memories.
Not just fiction either. Lately I have found that I have a great desire to study, to learn, to analyze. I’ve been reading memoirs and textbooks, biographies and essays. I want to know everything. Or at least as much as possible. I want to consider opinions. I want to read about experiences that are vastly different from my own. I want to know more history.
I want to have read things and remember them so that I can use that knowledge when I learn about even more stuff.
Perhaps it’s because I’m now in a place in my life when I know how much I don’t know. Perhaps it’s because I have this small twinkle that might just grow into a full blown PhD application. Perhaps it’s because there is so much going on in the world that I want to gather all the information I can to form my own opinions, and be able to back them up. I want to be able to reference things. If I hadn’t slacked off in my first round of undergrad, I’d be ahead of the game at this point.
But then there is fiction. Glorious literature. I want to know stories and language and characterization. Not only because my brain craves it, but because I want to get better at it myself, and there is no better way than to read. Everything.
