my reading journey

[art by Marta Milczarek]

Lately I've been reading a lot. With the lockdown going on and staying a lot at home, I've had a lot of time that I had to fill up somehow. So what better way to do that than reading? My preferred genres right now are LGBTQ+ (Romance), Mystery and Crime. I squeeze in other genres here and there (right now I'm reading a Slice-of-Life Fiction book), but those usually take more time to complete. I am, after all, taking a break from reading right now to write this while I'm only 23 pages in.

A while ago I started thinking about the books I used to read when I was little and then later in high school. I think those books helped shape my preferences for now. But let's go even further back. 

I think I always liked reading. When I was little my mum used to tell me stories at night and I still cherish those moments. If I think about it, I can feel the curiosity, the interest, and the warm comfort enveloping me in those moments. From then on, I don't remember ever not liking reading or wanting to lose myself in a made up story, being it by reading or imagining all kind of scenarios myself. 

When I finally learned how to read, I took advantage of our small library at home, and that's when I read books like Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux, and A Time to Kill by John Grisham. Out of these three books, the first and last were for a very long time some of my favourites, and even now I like them a lot, the bits that I can still remember. I don't want to read them again because I'm afraid I won't be as awed as the first time, so instead I continue liking them the same way I did then. When it comes to The Phantom of the Opera, I can't remember much. I wanted to re-read it at some point, but I couldn't find the book anymore. I think someone borrowed it and didn't return it. Either way, that one didn't leave a lasting impression on me.  

The only books I didn't particularly like reading where the mandatory school ones. I'm not even sure how I got away with skipping most of them. 

Later, during high school, about the time I really got into anime and manga, I started becoming more interested in Japanese literature. My favourite from that time is The Silent Cry by Kenzaburō Ōe. I got the book as a gift and devoured it, mostly reading it during classes at school. If I were to read it now, I'm not sure I would like it as much. I might not even read it at all. Apart from that one, I also want to mention Snow Country by Yasunari Kawabata, and Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto. I can't remember the circumstances surrounding the first, what I do remember is that I enjoyed it a lot and I went as far as declaring Kawabata as one of my favourite authors. Now I don't like Kawabata anymore. When it comes to the second, I remember finding the book at the school library and feeling intrigued. I borrowed it and I loved it. (Fun fact: right now I'm reading Moshi-Moshi by Banana Yoshimoto*). Since I read Kitchen I kept wanting to read more from the author, but I couldn't find any of her other books. 

I would say peak reading for me was during high school when I raided the local library, much bigger than the one back home. I read a bunch of Paulo Coelho's books then (they read so easily and knowing a lot of people disliking his books only made me want to read them more), The Portrait of Dorian Grey by Oscar Wilde, and a bunch of others I don't remember without going through my Goodreads account. I'm not even sure I did remember all of them when I made the account and logged them in. 

Since I made an account on Goodreads in 2016 and following to 2020, my stats look like this: 

I am not happy when I look at my earlier stats. Why did I not push myself just a little bit harder when it comes to something I genuinely like doing? What was I doing instead? Well, working, that's what I was doing. Around that time I had a pretty soliciting job that I shouldn't have stayed in for as long as I did. It really wasn't worth it for more reasons than just not reading. But then again, here I am now. It might seem a bit silly writing about this, but I am pretty darn proud of myself. This is a journey in more ways than one and I used to beat myself up when coming across a good book, thinking I was such a fool that I didn't read more and getting to that good book earlier, but I slowly started giving up on that way of thinking, because—ironically—that way of thinking made me not read. Sometimes things come to us when they are needed, not when we want them to. And looking at my progress, at how the numbers got higher and higher, well, I am happy about that.

__________ 

* I actually dropped Moshi-Moshi. I loved Kitchen when I read it, and no doubt I would have loved Moshi-Moshi too, but I just can't read books where nothing happens anymore. They are good books, I like the vibe, but I was struggling to stay awake, let alone pay attention, so I am not going to torture myself. I need exciting and angsty books, not chill, barely anything happens books, regardless of how good they are. Just not my genre right now. 

 

Extra fun fact: I wrote this post at the end of January and I forgot it in my drafts. Oopsie!

Extra extra fun fact: It took me so long to edit this because blogger decided to be a lil shit and not save my edits. This platform can be such a prick sometimes.