five notes on reading and writing
1. I have always loved reading and writing, the quintessential bookworm who thought spending her school holidays in the local library was a treat. I recently unearthed a notebook from when I was 8, in which I wrote and illustrated the imaginary adventures of two children (aka myself and my sister). In it I pretended we were boys because in childhood tales boys always seem to do all the fun stuff.
2. When I was in secondary school I churned out many, many morbid tales about a dystopic future. Some involved suicide, some involved murder. It was enough to make my English teacher speak to me privately about whether things were all right at home. And they were - maybe every teenager just needs some sort of outlet for angst. Mine was writing and metal music. (Funny how I listen to so much classical music now!)
3. I have always had the bad habit of eating while reading. My idea of a good time involves sitting down with hot milky tea, a biscuit, and a book. Here in Geneva I have the same routine, and the kids can just go entertain themselves, those fifteen minutes are all mine.
4. I didn't think I would take as well to the Kindle as I have over here, but I guess a lot of it is due to necessity, because I haven't found an English library nearby and I absolutely must have something to read every day (see point 3, above). Now that I've gotten used to it, I like having so many books at my fingertips in one slim device. The screen is also much better for the eyes than the iPad.
5. Despite being a bookworm, I rarely buy books, and the ones I buy I usually have read and loved, so their presence on my bookshelves are for memories and so that I can reach for them when I want to love them again. Books that will always be on my shelf for a lifetime: Generation X by Douglas Coupland; Selected Poems by T.S. Eliot; The Way I Found Her by Rose Tremain; the Bone comic series by Jeff Smith, and many more. Anyway, I rarely buy books because I'm constantly reading, and I read all sorts of things from contemporary fiction to graphic novels to frothy chick-lit to a lot of parenthood books. I could never afford to buy books at the rate I read.
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My recent discovery has been a young poet named Zachary Schomburg. So much of what I read and love somehow always sounds the same:
Building of Unseen Cats
When I woke up, it was the middle of the night and
my building was on fire. The hallway was not filled
with smoke, and then quickly it was. I rescued a few
older men from their bathtubs, a few babies from
their cribs. Outside, the air was filled with hair.
Everyone but me was holding a plastic cage with a
cat in it. We weren’t supposed to have cats in my
building, but there they all were, an invisible nation
suddenly uncurtained into a blinding and brutal
world. Everyone looked at me with a face that said
let’s never speak of this. Let’s not look directly at what
is meant to be loved in secret. Let’s, for example,
imagine the sea is always, constantly, and forever
spilling toward us, that our screaming building is
something worth escaping.
2. When I was in secondary school I churned out many, many morbid tales about a dystopic future. Some involved suicide, some involved murder. It was enough to make my English teacher speak to me privately about whether things were all right at home. And they were - maybe every teenager just needs some sort of outlet for angst. Mine was writing and metal music. (Funny how I listen to so much classical music now!)
3. I have always had the bad habit of eating while reading. My idea of a good time involves sitting down with hot milky tea, a biscuit, and a book. Here in Geneva I have the same routine, and the kids can just go entertain themselves, those fifteen minutes are all mine.
4. I didn't think I would take as well to the Kindle as I have over here, but I guess a lot of it is due to necessity, because I haven't found an English library nearby and I absolutely must have something to read every day (see point 3, above). Now that I've gotten used to it, I like having so many books at my fingertips in one slim device. The screen is also much better for the eyes than the iPad.
5. Despite being a bookworm, I rarely buy books, and the ones I buy I usually have read and loved, so their presence on my bookshelves are for memories and so that I can reach for them when I want to love them again. Books that will always be on my shelf for a lifetime: Generation X by Douglas Coupland; Selected Poems by T.S. Eliot; The Way I Found Her by Rose Tremain; the Bone comic series by Jeff Smith, and many more. Anyway, I rarely buy books because I'm constantly reading, and I read all sorts of things from contemporary fiction to graphic novels to frothy chick-lit to a lot of parenthood books. I could never afford to buy books at the rate I read.
_____________
My recent discovery has been a young poet named Zachary Schomburg. So much of what I read and love somehow always sounds the same:
Building of Unseen Cats
When I woke up, it was the middle of the night and
my building was on fire. The hallway was not filled
with smoke, and then quickly it was. I rescued a few
older men from their bathtubs, a few babies from
their cribs. Outside, the air was filled with hair.
Everyone but me was holding a plastic cage with a
cat in it. We weren’t supposed to have cats in my
building, but there they all were, an invisible nation
suddenly uncurtained into a blinding and brutal
world. Everyone looked at me with a face that said
let’s never speak of this. Let’s not look directly at what
is meant to be loved in secret. Let’s, for example,
imagine the sea is always, constantly, and forever
spilling toward us, that our screaming building is
something worth escaping.