The love of reading

I was introduced to the idea of story books when I was six years old. Until then I vaguely remember the stories my parents narrated to me at bed time; few, the well known tales and most, made up. The first memory of owning a book was "Aesop's fables". I never really read that book on my own until,maybe, I was ten. But I've heard my dad or my sister read from that book several times. Everytime I heard a story, I would drift into unknown lands, soar the skies in search of adventures. I liked to think I was subject of every story, re-enacting the scenes of the story in my head when I went to sleep. I liked to pretend I was brave to venture out on new journeys.

I am not sure when I started reading intensely but I remember being addicted to stories such as Nancy Drew, Famous Five and Hardy boys. I was 11yrs old perhaps.My dad had obtained membership to Central Library and he owned 2 borrower cards. Initially, he would lend me a borrower card and he would use the other. A year later , seeing my interest in reading, he was happy to lend me both cards. I would go to the library on alternate saturdays after school with my dad and he would walk me through the old stinky rows of seats to the back of the library which had tall racks of books. Several wooden shelves, rotted in some corners, disintegrating in few other places springling powdery stuff onto the old hardbound books were being replaced by metal racks in some sections of the library. There were very less books in children's sections but I managed to find a few good books now and then after skimming through a hundred books at the top levels where the new books were placed. The rule to find latest books was to search books with less dust. It was disappointing most times but nothing deterred my conviction to find a good book. I read books by Enid Blyton, Ruskin Bond and RK Narayan.

I have tried to read books from all genres..sometimes I blind date books. Walk into a store and pickup a random book without reading the covers.

Fast forward 20 years, I am rediscovering the love of reading. I read very few books in last 15 years..hardly 2 books a year. But something rekindled this interest in last few years and today I am glad that I completed reading 100 books.
Thanks to goodreads.com and a bookclub I am a part of. I am constantly encouraged to read.