Books (I couldn’t think of a better title.)

Real%20Gabinete%20Portugues%20De%20Leitura%20Rio%20De%20Janeiro%203 I luoghi della memoria scritta. Le Biblioteche italiane tra tutela e fruizione.
I can’t believe I haven’t written about this subject before!  Books are my life.  I started reading in kindergarten and I can honestly say books were the only true friends that I had through elementary school.  During “free time” in class, I would choose to sit at my desk and read a book rather than play with other kids (partially because I was shy, but mainly because I found books more interesting than Pogs.  Ok, it was also partially because I was bullied a little as a kid lol.).  Teachers would praise my vocabulary but lament over how I didn’t interact with other students, and my parents were one of the few parents in the world that wished their child read less.
When I was really little (gr.1-2) I would read the amazing collection of books we had at home.  I loved books by Enid Blyton that were set in England with charming little English school children as their protagonists.  They would have tea with scones, go to boarding schools, and have amazing adventures at the sea during their school holidays.  It was all so “quaint” and “charming” and so unlike life as I knew it!  The kids had so much freedom to go about as they please, and their lives at home were almost always idyllic.  I would read amazingly illustrated books such as “The Folk of the Faraway Tree”, and "Grimm’s Fairy Tales” and it’s uncanny because the pictures in those books of a fairy or a dwarf or gnome are forever stuck in my head so if someone were to say “gnome” to me, I will to this day picture the gnomes from the illustrated books I used to read.  I still read those books occasionally and my favourite (The Folk of the Faraway Tree) is just as enchanting now as it was then.  I miss books like those, I haven’t seen any other children’s book that has that amount of creativity and storyline along with beautiful illustrations to this day.  If you know of any, do recommend it to me. 
Around grades 2-5 I graduated to slightly bigger books such as The Nancy Drew series, The Boxcar Children, The Hardy Boys, The Baby Sitters club, books by Judy Blume, Roald Dahl, and R.L Stine…tons of books that were in the library of my elementary school where I would spend every lunch hour.  Once I read those books, (I honestly read most of them), I graduated to telling my sister to bring books back from her junior high school’s library (they were the more grown up versions of R.L Stine’s books.. the Fear Street series etc whereas my elementary school only had Goosebumps).Yup, I was one of those kids… I went to the library during lunch hours.  Needless to say, I wasn’t a very sportive or popular child.  It’s funny because when I pick up a certain book that I read, I remember who I was at that time, more than a photograph of me when I was younger could tell me.  They’re like little keys to the mystery of who I am.
I would always borrow the maximum amount of books from the elementary library (a measly 4), and then borrow a huge amount of books from the local library.  The librarians (if they didn’t know me) would always comment and say “are you sure you’re going to get to read these all?” and I would laugh in my head like “Psh lady you have no idea.”  I read everyday, and I still do.  I can’t eat without reading (it’s a bad eating habit, much like watching tv when you eat because you consume a lot more food), I read before I sleep, I often read when I wake up, I read every spare moment I get.  Summer holidays to me were days that I would get to stay up late without being yelled at to go to sleep and read.  Days I could go outside and sit on the shed in my backyard by the apple trees and read.  Days I could walk down to “7/11 to get a slurpee” with friends but really I just wanted to go to the library.  A library to me is one of the most sacred and beautiful places in the world.  The libraries that I have posted pictures of above are libraries that I would love to visit one day!  Books just have a little voice, and so do libraries.  Maybe I sound crazy but I get a major thrill every time I go into a library.  I just wish I could stay there as much as I wanted, and uncover all the secrets each library (by way of their books) has to offer.  I honestly can’t explain the connection I have with libraries, it’s like another home to me.  Some people may feel at home on a basketball court, no matter where that court is in the world.  I feel the same way about libraries, and Gurudwaras. 
Today, I couldn’t even tell you what kind of books I love, because I really love them all.  I love the classics, I love light hearted “chick lits” (the book equivalent of a chick flick), and I love books by ethnic authors (mainly Indian authors).  Here are some of the books that I’ve liked over the past few years:
What the Body Remembers - Shauna Singh Baldwin
A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
Shantaram - Gregory David Roberts
Reconciliation - Benazir Bhutto
Londonstani - Gautam Malkani
Beneath A Marble Sky - John Shors
Family Matters - Rohinton Mistry
Brick Lane - Monica Ali
Bel Canto - Ann Patchett
Salt & Saffron - Kamila Shamsie
The Folk of the Faraway Tree - Enid Blyton
Harry Potter books - J.K Rowling
The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
Love in the Time of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Valley of the Dolls - Jacqueline Susann
Daaku - Ranj Dhaliwal
P.S I Love You - Cecilia Ahern
Angels And Demons - Dan Brown
The White Tiger - Aravind Adiga
Q&A - Vikas Swarup
Bungalow 2 - Danielle Steel
Bitter Sweet - Roopa Farooki