Fact. I love to read. It is well known in my family and I remember throughout my childhood often getting into trouble for ‘eating books’. When we were set a reading competition at school I read over 100 books in the time period to the disbelief of my parents who thought I had just written every book I owned on the sheet. To the contrary, I had stayed up late every night reading, red the books under my desk at school and I was the girl reading on her walk home, not paying attention to the cars beeping their horns. I was a kid, there wasn’t much more to do and I wasn’t interested in watching three hours of news programs with my parents! They signed the competition form as long as I reduced the list to somewhere around 20 books. I did. I didn’t win.
Last year whilst all the drama was going on around me and inside my head my ability to read stopped. Quite suddenly I found myself sitting with a book ready, unable to concentrate, rereading the same paragraph over and over again. It was not unsurprising that I became frustrated. My sense of wanting to know things, read and learn was still there but I was stuck consuming short articles online that rarely went into any depth of knowledge. I wanted to read books.
You might be familiar with Jojo Moyes as her book Me Before You was made into a fabulous Hollywood movie capturing the hearts of all. To be honest I haven’t read or watched as even knowing the synopsis makes me sad so best to steer clear! However around October, I came across Paris for One and Other Stories in a bookstore and the format of short stories appealed to me. The pressure was lifted. Committing only half an hour, sometimes less, meant I didn’t have to remember a storyline for the next day let alone the next hour. The curse was gone and within no time I was eating through the short stories and realising I needed another book to read soon.
I’m back on the book reading wagon and as part of my #18in18 Lululemon goals I want to read one book a month. So if you too have struggled to read books recently try short stories and I know you will be reading novels in no time!
Have a great week. PF xo
PS. Normally I shoot my own photos of the books but in my lazy, summer holiday completely forgot so I took this image from Jojo Moyes website which looks amazing.
