A Home Away From Home

I don't care where I am or how I end up living like,I know that I want to have a library close with me. If by any chance,that wouldn't be possible,just to have a book safely tucked away in my bag is enough to make me feel at ease. You see,like everybody else,books offer me this safety blanket,the reassurance that no matter how cross-wired my life is at that exact moment,I can at least escape the reality. The heaviness and dread of a situation will always be easily lifted once I read. You could say I owe this to my parents,they started with the typical books with pictures. My particular favourite when I was a toddler was those big Disney books where you had to spot the items they asked you to ! Pre-teen days were spent reading every book from the Olsen and Enid Blyton franchise. I mean,c'mon. Who never read Enid Blyton?! As I grew older,I skipped the stage of Gossip Girls and all that,which comes to a surprise,even to my closest friends. I mostly stuck to Kinsella and Ahern and moved on towards the heavier plots until now. I leaned more to English books rather than Malay novels mainly because,well,I just don't fancy the plotlines. I only started reading Meniti Kaca and the rest because it was part of the education syndicate. I'm struck with awe,with the wistful thinking and with the way I absorb myself into the characters. I love words. Words excite me in ways I can't begin to explain. Never would I dub myself a flawless writer because I am not.Being an avid reader and having this much of a passion,as absurd as that sounds,it feels like having a boyfriend. I get caught up with what it tells me,it makes me smile to myself,and whenever I'm not with it,all I can think about is how badly I want to go home,jump on my bed,and let it keep me up all night,you know? A book doesn't even have to be open to feel that. The spines don't even have to be cracked. I'm the type of person who is most content with her fingers wrapped around a book and being tucked under covers. Why keep books if you don't pay attention to some of them? The answer is as obvious as asking a widow with 27 cats. To keep me company.