Thread by @InspirePod

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Seeing as it's #WorldBookDay2021 here's a few rambling observations on my relationship with books/reading

The first books that I remember loving enough to read under the covers and by the light of the streetlamps were The Hardy Boys collection. My Aunt Grainne would buy me a new one every few weeks and leave it under my pillow as a surprise, dated and signed by herself.

When I was around 8 I had a nature/wildlife obsessed teacher in primary school who I'm pretty sure ignored the rest of the curriculum.
He was inspiring about his single subject and often gave us very technical, wordy, adult books about some species of birds or whatever

I'd read the books even though I barely understood half the words in them but loved the clarity of the scientific writing. His name was Mr Dooge and I think this is him and a book that he wrote

I hated young adult books when I was a young adult because they often felt like they were trying too hard like Steve Buscemi in that meme but Holden Caulfield spoke to me in my early teens as I'm sure he did to many others

My favourite mid-teenage reading was books I'd pick from my Ma's bookshelf when I'd nothing else to read but there were some crackers there that shaped how I view the world to this day.
Ironically, I never saw my Ma read any of her books but 2 authors on her shelf impacted me

In college I committed to reading at least 50 pages a day and buried myself in modern classics. This was my most productive reading period and I read everything and everyone I could get my hands on, once it was deemed a classic.
It was during this period I created an alter ego ..

My bookish alter ego, Davide Khurani, joined several 'first 5 books free' type reading clubs where you'd have to commit to buy one book a month for a year.
Khurani was very unreliable in this regard and I'm sure is still wanted in the UK for several breaches of contract!

Read a lot of Palahniuk and Bukowski at that time and loved the freedom from convention with which they wrote. It felt modern, irreverent, and brave

I didn't read at all except for work for about 5 years when I had my kids. Hadn't the head for it and had to retrain myself when I got back into it.
At that time I set up a podcast and had the joy of interviewing lots of my favourite writers.
It was a heavily non fiction period

This book is probably the one I have most frequently bought and given to friends.

Other thoughts about books and reading;

All my kids are readers and it's maybe the only part of my parenting I regard as 100% successful

I give away books that I love now rather than keeping them. Books aren't for shelves (except reference) they're for passing along

Speaking of which, I don't have bookshelves publicly displayed. There's always half-read books around the house but I hate the ostentatious display of worthy reads that book shelves so often become.
For example I hate the book shelf zoom trend.
I'm weird like that though

I also take notes in my books, spill tea on them, fold the corners of their pages, and use them as temporary stands.

I used to be the opposite and treat books like babies but over time I did a 180 on this. I love seeing other people's underlining in books, or mine years later

If there was a hierarchy of media consumption I'd put reading just after creation of media.
I say this as someone who LOVES film, tv, internet etc but books, and the unique relationship they create between author and reader, are my favourite media still

I want to write something some day. I'm not that good at it but this didn't stop me playing football for almost 4 decades and counting. It'll probably be shite and terribly autobiographical. If I do I'll be getting the bookcase out again!

Thread over.