Story Hoarder

As you already know, I am an avid reader, and reading is not only one of my favorite things to do but is also something I feel really constitutes a big part of who I am.

When I was younger I had a habit of never leaving a book I started reading, even if I didn’t like it. As I grew older I became (a little) less strong-headed and also realized that if I don’t seem to “click” with a certain a book, there are two possibilities:

1. I really don’t like the book. In this case – why suffer? Better go on to something more enjoyable.

2. This is not the right timing for me to meet this book. I have let a few books “ripe” in my library, and to my surprise a    book I could not get over page 20 in at one point was read in one continous read three years later.

That said, I sometimes go through periods in which I find it very difficult to read anything. These episodes are rare, but they do happen. They make me wonder – is there a “Reader’s Block” similar to a writer’s block?

Lately I find myself picking one book after another, reading a few dozen pages and leaving them for a later date, or moving very slowly through them. I started getting worried until I found this lovely book – The Oxford Murders (Crímenes imperceptibles) by Argentinian author Guillermo Martínez – an enjoyable, easy to read, intelligent little thriller that I finished in two days’ reading on the bus on my way to work.

Although I am still struggling with other books I started, this gave me hope that this phase shall and can pass.

Hello all. I have just got back from an 11-day tour with my boyfriend in the fantastic land of Georgia (the country, not the US state).A few details and some lovely pictures from this trip can be found in this post on his blog.

One of the things that really struck me as a reader is that although I brought books with me, the nest read for me throughout the trip were guidebooks. We had three guides: Lonely Planet Georgia, Armenia & Azerbaijan Travel Guide – highly recommended ; Bradt Georgia Travel Guide – which we found quite unhelpful; and Peter Nasmyth’s Walking in the Caucasus – a very good book to guide you through the many very worthwhile walks this country offers.

In the many hours we spent on buses, taxis and cars I found myself going back to these guides again and again. This has happened to me on other trips abroad as well. Maybe it’s the wish not to disrupt the spirit of traveling that engulfs you during such trips, the wish to be completely there and not wander anywhere else.

One of the interesting people we met on the trip was Cathy, a British woman living in the US for many years, who has decided to take early retirement and go on all the trips she wished she had and never got around to. In this post she also talks of the fascination of travel guides from a different angle.

If you don’t get to travel (which is very recommended), you can at least grab one of these books and walk into some place completely different and fascinating.

I’ll leave you with one picture from the beautiful land of Georgia:

Like other hoarders, one does not become a story hoarder – one is born that way. Since early childhood I had a deep love for stories and books. My mother says that the only way to make me sit quietly for a few minutes was to read  me a story. When I was about four I had a series of children tales in Spanish that I already knew by heart, and I would read them aloud, pretending to read the print, and even turning the pages on cue.

When I started school, a fantastic new world was open to me – the world of books. So many books available, containing fantastic stories! My father, a fellow aficionado, recognized my passion and took me to the public library, and from that day onwards I was the favorite of all the librarians I met. They all let me borrow much more books per week than was allowed, and allowed me to forage into the darkest corners and into “staff only” zones of the library.

As I grew older, I left public libraries behind in favor of a new addiction – the second hand book store. Good second hand book stores give me a rush – the floor-to ceiling shelves packed with books, a real Aladdin’s cave where the strangest, most wonderful books await, make me dizzy with anticipation.

The great thing about thsee cstores is that, unlike chain stores, they don’t rely on a steady stream of books arriving from publishers but on chance and on the specific tastes and whims of the people arriving at their door.  Second hand book stores allow you to find books that are out of print, books which nobody heard about but are great, authors you would generally not come across…

This is particularly true for someone living in a non-English speaking country as myself. Although books in English are readily available in any bookstore, most of them tend to have only bestsellers or classics – no surprises there. Buying online is a good solution if you know what you are looking for, but does not provide a good rummaging experience. Only a second hand book store gives you the opportunity to wander around, hunting for something unique, bizzare, interesting and completely new.