Here is a topic I have wanted to write about for a little while: my return to reading, as a working adult. Partly because it interests me to hear similar stories from others, partly because books are such a joy to me that I want to bring them more to the forefront on my blog (- for example, with my new Book Review Series!) and it seems only natural to give some context for doing so.
I adored reading as a child, if there is a verb stronger in meaning that springs to mind then go ahead and substitute it here. It was something that I staked a claim to very early on as part of my identity: my mother and grandmother both loved reading, I grew up in a house full of books. I always had a book with me, wherever we went. I read in the car, I read in waiting rooms, I read deep into the night when I should have been asleep, I read first thing in the morning before school. I read in French, because we lived in France. But in the holidays we moved back to England, my parents would take me and my siblings to join the local library, I would read everything on offer.
I read heavily up until University, where I promptly stopped. Looking back, I don’t think there was ever any conscious or deliberate act. My time simply filled up with other things: essay writing, student journalism, sports, exciting lectures, debates and talks, new friendships, new adventures. I read huge amounts during my first two years at University, but it was all academic reading. There was always a deadline, an upcoming exam. I think perhaps it felt indulgent to read for pleasure, or perhaps I was simply no longer in the right headspace for it. Whatever the reason, I simply stopped.
After several years, I changed the focus of my undergraduate degree away from ancient history and languages. I took papers in modern French and German literature, the only time really that I have ever studied literature, and I loved them. I started reading fiction again, although this was prescribed fiction, the reading lists that had been assembled for us. I started thinking about the matter of books, their cultural context, what had come before, what would come after. I learnt a little about theory and style, I wrote a little about my own interpretations, I was fascinated. I borrowed books from friends, I started reading again in my holidays, out of pleasure and a newfound curiosity, but I was also aware of the rapidly looming end of my degree, I felt a need to focus my efforts and spare time on the next thing, I had no idea what the next thing should be.
I ended up back at University, this time at medical school. This time round my free time filled rapidly with work, always more study, more exams. No part of this period of my life came easily to me. I put reading down again, I felt constantly as though I were in survival mode, I had no time.
And so my real return to reading came four years later, at the close of my medical degree. I think I knew early on that I would be returning to it. I remember buying a book a few weeks before my final exams, saving it to read on the day of my last exam, when everything was officially over. I did: it was a beautiful sunny summer day: I lay in the botanic gardens all afternoon and read. I moved to the first town where I would work, bought books new for the first time, luxuriated in days of reading after nightshifts, on the train home to visit my family. I moved again to the next city where I would work, found a secondhand bookshop that I fell in love with, and all of a sudden books were fully back in my life once more.
During this time I rediscovered a friendship I had lost touch with, from early undergraduate days. My friend introduced me to Alain de Botton’s School of Life, back when it was named the Book of Life, and I remember coming across this article. It struck me as saying something important, and true. I spoke with my friends about reading before bed, I began to make time for it in the same way that I made time to be outside, to be with friends. As something more than just a pleasure. As something fundamentally important to me, for me.
Not long after that I moved here, to New Zealand. I brought a handful of books with me, since then I have shipped over many more. I have let myself be drawn to whatever feels right: in the beginning books by and about Australasian writers, later, after inheriting a friend’s collection, books by women, clever captivating fiction that draws me in, keeps me guessing. After making my way through those I branch out along similar paths, writers from the same period, writers currently acclaimed. I start writing myself, and with my medical exams out of the way, I find I have space and inclination not just to read, but to think about reading once more. I listen to podcasts about books, I read blogs about books. I try to place them in their context, I pay attention to what it is about them that I enjoy. I even make notes. Because to do so brings me joy.
And so here we are now: reading, again.
Mad to Live 