I've always been an avid reader and devourer of books but lately not so much. These days it seems to take me an age to finish one and, even on holiday recently, I only managed a measly 3 and a bit novels in 10 days. I was so shocked at my output and lack of progress that I started to question whether someone was adding pages during the night. I've even had to clear a couple of shelves on one of our bookcases to store books purchased (oh yes, I still love to buy them) but which remain unread. So what's that all about? Ageing, maybe? It seems to be the cause of a number of other unwelcome changes these days!
I used to have the opposite problem and had to supplement books I bought with trips to the public library. When I was a child, the rule in our town was that you had to be 7 before you were allowed to join. I can remember counting down the days to my 7th birthday, not because of the promise of presents and a party (although such things were, and still are, always very welcome) but it was the thought of being able to borrow books instead of relying on my parents to feed my appetite for reading matter.
My class had been taken to the library for a school visit by our head mistress at the start of the school year when we would all be turning 7, it was that important. (So important that a girl in another class was shamed in front of the whole school because she hadn't returned a book on time). The library was situated on a corner of the main street where I lived, next door to the clinic (where you were sent if you turned up at school feeling unwell or looking as if you might "have something") and next door but one to the local police station. I just remember seeing shelf after shelf of books during that visit although, on reflection, there can't have been that many as it wasn't a particularly large building. (It's still there but no longer a library).
But oh, the anticipation of becoming a member. Once I hit the magic number (my birthday was in the summer holidays and, as I was the youngest in my class, I was also the last to join the library), I hot foot it to the place I'd been dreaming about soon after opening time and breathed in that unmistakeable library pong. (Did you know you can now buy it?)
In those days, as a junior member of the library, you were entitled to two tickets, blue and yellow, which could be used to borrow one fiction book and one non fiction. My fiction choice that first time was the story of a hen who laid golden eggs. The non fiction book was about ballet. I'd read them by the end of that day, before and after partying and celebrating being 7, and went back to the library the next morning to change them. But, I had the wind well and truly taken from my sails when told (quite sharply, I seem to recall) by the librarian "No, you can't. You have to keep the books for two weeks".
So, it seems I've gone from reading too quickly to taking an age to get through a book. I still do a lot of work related reading and I'm always reading blogs. And magazines. It's books which have fallen by the wayside and, although I always have a book on the bedside table and read every night, at most I manage a couple of pages before nodding off. This means I keep forgetting who's who in the story and have to keep checking back (which further slows down the reading process) and then, when I do eventually finish, I soon forget what its been about.
These are the books I read on holiday:
No, I cannot lie. I'm still reading the last one.