Cryptic Meg

Here is a common tale. Once upon a time, there lived a voracious little reader. Every week she and her sister would get new books out of the library. She used to read past her bedtime by the glow of the landing light – how she strained her eyes! She went through phases: an Enid Blyton phase, a Robin Hood phase, a King Arthur phase, a high fantasy phase, a horror phase… Even when they weren’t reading, she and her sister would play whilst listening to books on cassette tapes: making LEGO houses or Hama bead creations whilst listening to The Railway Children or The Story of Tracy Beaker. Their father also read to them every evening: The Hobbit and Harry Potter and Discworld.

Something started to change at secondary school, when homework took longer, MySpace and The Sims 2 were all the rage (yes, that ages our protagonist), and books had to be studied for English Literature lessons. She was still reading in the evenings and listening to audio books as she went to sleep, but other things were clamouring for her attention. She wasn’t chomping through so many books any more.

Then our bookworm went to university to do a history degree. She had nine contact hours a week; the rest of the time she was reading academic books and journal articles. At the end of the day, she couldn’t face the active work of reading for pleasure. Plus she had an unexpectedly active social life to fill her time.

After university she struggled to pick up the reading habit again. Suddenly she was an adult with a job – and she was tired! She got her fictional fix from flickering stories on Netflix. And make no mistake – to this day she loves TV and films; but it wasn’t the same as reading. She missed losing herself in a book, but couldn’t seem to find the motivation for that slightly more strenuous hobby.

Well reader, did you guess? That lapsed bookworm is me! Fast-forward to the present day – and you find me happily endowed with more energy due to being in a comfortable job, and (presently) gifted with more time by home-working. Remembering how much joy reading used to bring me, I decided that I was going to put that time and energy into reviving my inner bookworm. I even researched how to be a better reader, and took up some of the tips:

• I read during the day. I always used to read last thing at night, but I can’t do that any more – my eyelids just droop.
• I have a couple of books on the go (generally one fiction and one non-fiction) so I can choose whichever one takes my fancy.
• I carry a book with me wherever I go, just in case there’s an opportunity. I bought a little satchel for this very purpose.
• I don’t race through books. I have established that I am not a very fast reader; my husband gets through books much quicker than I do. That’s fine, because the quality of the reading is more important than the quantity. (Although in a rare turn of events, last weekend I gobbled up Klara and the Sun the day I received it because I was so intrigued by it.)
• I allow myself to skim-read, or even give up on a book (gasp!) if I’m not enjoying it. Pillars of the Earth – I’m looking at you. Life is too short to force your way through a book.
• I buy second-hand books. While I think e-readers are a great idea, in practice I’m more inspired by the feeling of a physical book in my hands. This is much more sustainable if I buy second-hand!
• I am keeping a record of my reading on Goodreads. You will see that I have included a widget on the side of this website. I thought blogging about what I read might be of interest, and might help reinforce the habit.

I know many people who struggle to read having been avid readers in childhood, and I would like them to know that there is hope. I think the key for me was realising that my reading habit now cannot look the same as it did when I was younger – I had to adapt it for my adult life. Thankfully the inner bookworm was still there, ready to be indulged again. And, hopefully, it will live happily ever after.

Find/follow me on Storygraph if you like