Sunday, February 13, 2011

... in books

My last weeks were just so crazy. There was so much to do - papers to write, exams to study for, and books to read. Unfortunately I had to read books for university and I am not a huge fan of being told what to read. But I finished them anyway.

Some weeks ago I had an interesting conversation with a friend of mine. He is not really one who reads a lot – realistically he doesn’t read at all. Can’t understand that but that is another story!
We started talking about my crazy reading habits and why I have a huge pile of unread books and always complain that I have nothing to read.
During this conversation he looked at me and told me that he needs to ask me something. A question only I can answer because I am the only person he knows who is that crazy about reading.

He told me the following story:
I am riding the tube to work and there is this woman getting on. She remains standing and starts reading in her book. At the next station she leaves the train. Why on earth did she start reading? There is hardly enough time to fish the book out of the bag, look for the right page and then for the right line, start reading, put the bookmark back in and the book back in the bag. Why does somebody do such a thing?

I found this so funny because it didn’t sound crazy for me. He looked at me blankly and really wanted an explanation from me.

So I answered like a bibliophile.
Think about this situation again. Did she look for the book in her bag? No? I thought so. I suspect that she got on the train book in hand. This was because she waited for the train to arrive and while waiting she started reading. Then the train came and she boarded it still reading and rode just one station. Did she put the book in her bag before she left the train? No? Well, then she must have changed lines and the story starts at the beginning. Reading while waiting, while riding the train and then before she finally arrived at her stop she put the book in her bag and left the train.

He was so stunned.

The next day I went to a bookshop because a friend of mine was celebrating his birthday and I was looking for a present. Yeah a book! I left the story 15 minutes later with 5 books in my bag and not so much money in my purse. I wrote my friend a message and told him about these special 15 minutes I just had.

His answer was: Yes, you’re a freak but everybody has to have a spleen and we all love you!

I am so very fortunate to have such loving friends!

By the way:
Today I finished a wonderful book


I really recommend reading it! 
But I recommend all books I know!

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