One of my favourite authors, Somerset Maugham,
in one of my favourite short stories,
The Book Bag, describes his,
well, the character’s,
need to read,
this way:
Some people read for instruction,which is praiseworthy,
and some for pleasure,which is innocent,but, not a few read from habit,
and I suppose that this is neither innocent nor praiseworthy.
Of that lamentable company am I. Conversation after a time bores
me, games tire me, and my own thoughts,which we are told are the
unfailing resource of a sensible man,have a tendency to run dry.
Then I fly to my book as the opium smoker to his pipe…
and like a dope-fiend who cannot move from place to place without taking a
plentiful supply of his deadly balm I never venture far without a sufficiency of
reading matter.
I don’t see reading, quite like that but,
close.
I always have a book, a newspaper or a magazine with me.
Sunday laundromat visits,
I bring a book.
Riding the subway on my own,
a book.
Go away for a few days,
several books.
If I owned an e-reader,
I would still bring a book,
for possible emergencies.
Sometimes I travel with another person,
and wish I could read,
manners prevent me.
Waiting and life are so much better with books.
I like people,
I like conversation,
I even like television,
but reading and books,
they are my fall back,
my safe place,
the beginning and end of each day.
Sort of explains the bookish moniker,
I guess.
Later girls
BB
