In Praise Of Reading

Apparently 25% of the population didn’t read a book last year. Who can say that they’re truly surprised? But this doesn’t necessarily mean doom and gloom for the publishing industry (and least I bloody hope not). £1.8bn was spent on books last year, and the average price went up by 4p to £7.57. Of course, 2% of all book sales was Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, but the message is essentially, books are still being bought. It’s just that they aren’t read by everybody.
I love reading. Since about the age of 7, when I ‘got it’, I’ve devoured books, basically of any sort. I went from Enid Blyton to The Chalet School, from Georgette Heyer to Dick Francis to, heaven forgive me, Jilly Cooper, and I’ve never really looked back. I haven’t just read so called ‘trashy’ novels of course (although I would defend them to the death). There was a fairly embarrassing episode when I was about 9 because my head teacher wouldn’t believe I was reading Tennyson, and I’ve got very into modern fiction recently, discovering the works of Jonathan Coe. But what I really love is the type of book where I can just rip through it, a M. M. Kaye or Alistair MacLean, where I can sit, ignore the real world, inhabit the one before me, get absorbed in the characters, and finish the book in one sitting.
For some reason, this really annoys some people, who see it as proof I’m not experiencing them properly. The average is 60 pages an hour, and while I have no idea exactly how quick I am, it’s faster than that. But it’s not that I’m not appreciating it. I’m taking in every sentence, and I would hope, every nuance. Although thinking about it, the joy of these books as that they don’t really have nuances. But trashy doesn’t necessarily mean bad. Yes, there are some books, such as Alan Bennett’s Untold Stories, which are to be savoured, and every beautifully crafted sentence pored over. Yet the aforementioned M. M. Kaye or Mary Stewart Books are well written. Yes, there may be a certain formulaity to their plots, but that is what I like. These are comfort reads, in the same way a big bowl of pasta is comfort eating. You don’t want them all the time and they aren’t healthy if consumed on their own, but as part of a balanced diet – sheer bliss.