Why the sudden surge of number of books read? My previous personal best was 17 books which I tallied in 2004 (I have been making a list of what I read since high school). I wasn’t really serious when I joined the Shelfari group, which dares members to read 50 books a year; I just wanted to try to measure up among the most voracious readers in the group, and to challenge myself as well. I almost made the cut last year. But with my target of 4 or 5 books a month, which I was able to achieve in the last two months, I think I am on track to finish more than 50 books for the year.
And I have been as voracious as I was in '04, in spite of my tight schedule of my workload in the office, my law studies, and freelance writing. And whenever I have a chance I squeeze on my time hunting for secondhand books. As if I got scared that I'll run out of good books to read!
I read any chance I get, and anywhere! I bring with me whatever book I am reading wherever I go, just in case I have a few minutes to wait for a ride, or my turn to pay in a grocery counter. Why not, a few minutes of waiting, is a few less minutes of boredom.
I can usually read even with distractions around. It depends on how good the book is! I read on my commute to work each day (about an hour each way). At work when I get bored, and sometimes on my lunch breaks, I would read a book. For the rest of the day especially before my class schedule I read my textbooks, assigned cases (photocopied from SCRA), and other law-related materials.
When I get home from work and definitely before bedtime, I devour more pages of the novel I am currently reading. And my favorite place to read is in bed with a comfortable pillow.
I remember one weekend during my college years, I practically did not rise from bed until lunchtime just to finish a John Grisham book. And some years earlier, while I was in high school in Narvacan, I would bring a book with me whenever I led my cow to graze in the pasture. I stayed under a tree or beside tall grasses while watching over my cow. But during those days, I only had a limited number of books to read. Most of the books were borrowed from someone else. I never owned a single book. I was only able to buy my first pocketbook ever, the classic Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities, when I was l already working in my first job in Quezon City.
Now with my renewed interest (or addiction, according to my wife) in reading pocketbooks, I can now read classic and popular books that I never had a chance to read during my younger years. There are free sites for downloading e-books but I still prefer reading them on paperbacks. My extra pay from my freelance job had helped me shore up my budget for books. I believe that in my years of reading, my brain has become more robust and energized, as I began to appreciate life around me more than I used to. I’ve never been a social person, rightly now as a working student. How could I miss hanging out with friends or going to a party when I could ensconce myself anytime I want in any corner conducive to reading? A Sunday, of course, is a family day, and partly freelance-work day and partly reading day.
I consider these books out of the 42 which I read last year as the ones that gave me the mostest benefits of entertainment, wisdom and all: To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, Journey by James A. Michener, The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien, The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, Arrowsmith by Sinclair Lewis, Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier, The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, The Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy, The Cider House Rules by John Irving, and East of Eden by John Steinbeck.
And more to come in my waiting list.
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