“There is more treasure in books than in all the pirate’s loot on Treasure Island.”
Walt Disney
When I was young, I was forever in trouble for reading too much. In my parent’s defence, I was usually reading when I should have been doing something else. Still, this seems like a strange thing to say in an age of mobile phones and the internet. My daughter, once an avid reader, would now much rather spend her time virtually chatting to friends. But, as a shy, often unhappy child, books were my safe space.
As a kid, I spent the majority of my time reading in my bedroom. Until my parents divorce when I was 11, there were six of us living in a small three-bed terraced house. My room had just enough space for a single bed and a bedside table, and the only thing that separated me from the rest of the house was a thin, brown plastic concertina door. As soon as I closed that door and opened a book, I was transported to another world.
I would drive my mum mad in the mornings. When I should have been getting ready for school, I’d be frantically turning the pages of my latest book, one ear trained to the door listening for footsteps coming up the stairs. If I wasn’t reading at home, I was reading in the car, or whilst walking to school. Once I was caught reading at my sister’s holy communion. I could tune out the world and become totally engrossed in an instant. What happened in my books were far more exciting than anything that happened in my real life.
It started as an adventure
Initially, it was adventure stories that I craved. I enjoyed Enid Blyton’s The Secret Seven and The Naughtiest Girl in School books but my favourites by far were her Famous Five collection. I devoured every book more than once. How I longed for their lives. The picnics on the beach, the stealing away from home in the middle of the night, the mystery solving. I identified with George who was a tom boy just like me. And I was desperate for a dog like Timmy who would sleep at my feet.
But, I’d read anything that the school put my way and whilst still at primary school, I had a reading age of 13.
My American dream
As a teenager, I was skinny and plain with a thick head of dull brown frizzy hair and a fringe that covered half my face. This wasn’t entirely a bad thing as it distracted from the ugly, scabby cold sore that I invariably had on my lips. Safe to say, I wasn’t all that popular. It was at this time that I discovered Back Home by Michelle Magorian. The book, about 12-year old Rusty’s return from the USA after evacuation during World War 2, started my love affair with Americana. I related to Rusty’s experience of feeling out of place. My life felt as grey and drab as the post-war Britain to which Rusty had returned. Books like Sweet Valley High and Hollywood Dream Machine, which were set in American high schools, helped me to imagine an alternative existence where I was blond-haired, blue-eyed, confident and popular.
What I like to read changes
My reading taste has evolved over the years as I have grown and matured. In my late teens, I would spend hours captivated by sweeping sagas. Authors such as Sidney Sheldon, Danielle Steel, Jeffrey Archer, Martina Cole and Erich Segal. There was the vampire phase thanks to the Twilight trilogy. After I read Hunger Games I got right into dystopian fiction. In my 20s it was “chick-lit”, amazing female writers such as Marian Keyes, Adele Parks, Sophie Kinsella, Jojo Moyes, Lisa Jewell and Liane Moriarty. Their writing was clever and funny and they inspired me to put pen to paper myself.
Then there was the phase when I wouldn’t read fiction at all. Yes, I got a bit snobby. I didn’t think that fiction had anything to teach me. I soon saw sense and a few years ago, I read all of the Harry Potter books. They’d passed me by when they were first published. I finally understood what all the fuss as about; I loved them.
I am so invested
When I read a well written book, I am fully invested in the story and it’s characters. The first time I read Erich Segal’s Love Story, it wrecked me. By the time I finished it, I was full body sobbing. I re-read it probably once a year and EVERY time, I am broken.
Outlander by Diana Gabaldon, started a love affair with a story and its characters which is ongoing, over twenty-five years later. I read the first book by chance at 14 and managed to pick up the sequel the following year in Florida, ahead of its UK release. I was so engrossed in the story that even the magic of Disney World couldn’t tempt me away. The author adds to the series every four or five years and as soon as they drop I clear a week, so that I can continue Jamie and Claire’s story uninterrupted.
When I finish a great book, it can leave me bereft. It’s like I’ve lost a friend and it’ll me take a few days to come down from all of the emotion.
Reading as a learning tool
In recent years, reading went from being a form of escapism to a tool of self-realisation and personal development. I have read much around the subjects of diet, exercise, psychology, science and spiritual development.
I have learnt the most about myself though, through reading memoir, especially by female authors. Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat Pray Love, taught me that I exist and can thrive outside of my marriage and inspired my grown up gap year. When I read Love Warrior by Glennon Doyle, it felt like her words could have been my own. Brené Brown’s research and writing around vulnerability and shame strongly resonated with my story. The inclusion of her own struggles makes her writing that much more relatable.
Gloria Steinem and Helen Lewis taught me about feminism and the importance of the great women who led the way. Maya Angelou and Edith Eger showed me my privilege.
Women writers rule
Catherine Grey, Holly Whitaker and Laura McKeown reinforced my decision to quit the booze. Bryony Gordon gave my intrusive thoughts a name (OCD). Fearne Cotton told me that I wasn’t the only 40 year old to suffer from anxiety and panic attacks. Katherine May reminded me that it is human to sometimes need to retreat into the self in order to repair. Elizabeth Day taught me the value of failure.
Dani Shapiro showed me the kind of writer I want to be and her book Still Writing is my writing bible. So many woman such as Cheryl Strayed, Tara Westover and Jeanette Walls; brave, honest, humble women have shared their stories with me and made me feel less alone.
If I want to write, I must read
There are not many days that go by when a book doesn’t drop through my letter box and my husband jokingly refers to the pile of books on my bedside table as the leaning tower. It does cause me slight anxiety that I have more books than I can realistically get through. But, that joy of getting a new book has never left me and I still read at every opportunity.
Now I mix up it up depending on what I feel like in the moment. I’ve fallen back in love with great fiction but sometimes it’s memoir or self-development I crave. It’s all equally valuable.
In On Writing Stephen King says,
“If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot. There’s no way around these two things that I’m aware of, no shortcut. “If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that.”
So when yet another book falls through my letter box, I tell my husband that it is research for my writing. I mean, things worked out pretty well for Stephen King didn’t they.
