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.